A Curse as Dark as Night, and Cold
by LA Knight
Summary: A sleeping princess, a cursed prince, a baffled king, a band of brothers, and ancient magic cold as shadows and death. Loyalty, honor, duty and love are the only shields against a looming war.
1. Prologue: Tokens Found in Slumber

_**Author's Note:**_ _so I've written a bazillion fanfics but_ never _written a_ Thor _fanfic before. Or a fanfic for any comic other than_ X-Men _before. So hopefully I do well. I hope you enjoy what I've done, and if you find any flaws or mistakes or what-have-you, please let me know so I can fix them. I usually don't post prologues by themselves, but I received a teensy nudge from one of the best fic authors on this site, OceanFire9, and she does me lots of favors, so I thought I'd do her one._

_And just so you know, the MC's Mary-Sue Litmus Test Score (I always post this in the first chapter) is __**10**__. "Most likely Not-Sue. Characters at this level could probably take a little spicing up without hurting them any (from the Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test)."_

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_**A Curse as Dark as Night, and Cold  
>A Modern Faerie Tale<strong>_

_**Prologue  
>Tokens Found in Slumber<strong>_

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It is often said that things are not simply black and white, but that all things reside within shades of gray. Nick Fury thought of that as he cradled a small, white satin object in his large dark hands. Where to place blame was not always black and white, either. After all, the federal agent could have placed the blame on Coulson for the room that now pressed down on him, its blank walls the dingy paleness of old bones, the room itself empty of anything save labeled and duct-taped cardboard boxes like sawdust-colored tombstones.

The room itself was stifling. The sweat gathered at the back of his neck and slipped beneath the collar of his jacket. Droplets of water rolled down the white-painted concrete walls and gathered in tiny pools on the cement floor that had been stripped of its cheery carpet. Threatened to mildew the cheap paper blinds hanging brokenly from the cracked window. Staring at the glass spiderweb of cracks made his hand throb in memory.

An insectile buzzing in his pocket distracted him from staring at the fragmenting glass, at the drops of old blood that stained the jagged edges of the more damaged shards that still clung desperately to their fellows. Ancient blood on pale glass; not always black and white, or black on white. Never quite sure where to place the blame. Coulson... or himself... or S.H.I.E.L.D... or a teenager who'd known exactly what he'd been doing, what he'd been planning. Nick pulled out his phone and tried to remember it didn't matter anymore who was at fault and who wasn't. Coulson was sorry. He was sorry, too. And the kid... the kid was dead.

"Fury," he snapped into the phone. "What is it, Coulson?"

His agent's voice was smooth and polite when he said, "The trucks and the workmen are here for the boxes, sir." No indicator that the man was still walking around with a metal plate in his head, still limping from the surgeries that had fixed his mangled knee and stuck him behind a desk for the last eight months.

Nick didn't want the blasted trucks to be there. Didn't want the workmen coming into this room that no one had been in except him since the accident and handling the flimsy boxes with their fragile contents. The idea had bile rising in the back of his throat. No one had come into this room since his fist had sent hairline cracks spiderwebbing through the window. And before that, no one had dared open the door when the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. entered this place. It was an unspoken rule that no one disturbed him here.

Until now. Now they were packing the whole thing. Boxing it up. Shipping it out. Sending it to the helicarrier. Putting it into storage where he wouldn't be able to look at the things hidden away behind silvery duct-tape locks. Only the single object in his hand would remain behind. He wondered whether he ought to put it on his desk or leave it locked up tight in a drawer.

"Sir?" Coulson's voice snagged his superior back from the mental void he'd slipped into.

"Trucks and movers coming up." Nick replied as if there had been no pause in the conversation, gently tucking the miniature ballet slipper into the pocket of his black leather coat. Desk drawer. Definitely. He'd pick up a trinket box to keep it safe once they got back to the Helicarrier. "Acknowledged."

**.**

In spring Nick brought the puffs of dandelions, even though the nurses had apocalyptic conniptions about the possible allergens and contaminates. He would brush them over her fingers and remember the little girl who would run up to him, holding out the white cotton ball on a green stem, and tell him to make a wish. Sometimes he hadn't had time to play. He should have made more time. Sometimes he'd had the time, and he'd blown, and the filmy white ball had exploded into a thousand tiny tickly pieces. Sometimes they had gotten in her mouth and she'd made faces trying to spit them out on the grass. He wondered if she could feel the softness of the dandelion seeds now.

Summer offered longer days, and flowers like roses and honeysuckle. Could she smell them? The fragrance of roses was rich and heady in the hospital room, and he would remember how much she'd wanted to live in a house with a garden. Why hadn't he ever let her have a garden? Honeysuckle's golden syrup smell was heavy on the recycled air. Too heavy, the nurses said, but he wouldn't let them take the flowers out. When no one was looking, he would take one of the pale blossoms and squeeze a drop of the nectar onto her tongue. Just a drop. She'd always loved the sweetness.

Autumn, he would try to talk to her about what was happening outside. Out in the world beyond the darkness of her closed eyelids. Leaves turning from green to gold and fire in the late afternoon sun. Frost curling on the windows. She'd shown him how to make pictures on frosted glass with thimbles and paperclips. He'd never been very good at it. Grownup fingers were too big. Her little fingers had been just the right size.

Sometimes he brought a leaf - maple were the biggest, and brightest, and she liked them, but oak leaves had interesting shapes, she'd always said. He would ever so gently curl her fingers around it. Let the tiny drops of morning dew slide along her skin, seep between her fingers, catch under her nails. Remembered watching her jump into leaf piles. Watch her throw them in the air to make a shower of golden leaves, a whirlwind of them, and spin around and around as they all fell down around her, laughing and smiling and dancing, how she'd loved to dance, a blur of a little girl in blue jeans and a bright sweater.

In winter, when ice coated the streets and snow sugared everything, he would bring her some of the fresh whiteness and watch it melt in her limp hand. Her skin would turn marble-white with the cold of it. He would remember snowmen and ice forts and long-pitched battles with fluffy snowy missiles. The goal, whenever he'd been on her team, had always been to get at least one snowball down Mommy's jacket.

Every day he came he would read to her. Stories of girls who fell asleep and woke up long after the curse had first come upon them. _Beauty Sleep; "Thorns;" Once Upon a Summer's Day; "Charm;" Spindle's End; the Gates of Sleep; Waking Rose; "Awake;" Watching the Roses; The Wide-Awake Princess; "And Still She Sleeps;" Briar Rose._ All the same story, of the girl who pricked her finger and fell into an enchanted slumber. One of her favorite stories as a little girl. She'd always liked faerie tales. Always liked how they could stay the same, or change. Just like she did now - still the same inside, locked away in a coma, but changing still.

He didn't let them cut her hair again after the surgery. In everything else, practically, he gave the medical staff their way, but not with that. It would have been the easiest way, but she wouldn't have wanted them to cut her hair. Not after she'd finally managed to get it to grow out. Not after finally figuring out what to do with it to keep it from becoming a tangled rat's nest. Instead he told them to let it grow long again, and had someone in to do her hair every week in the style she'd preferred. If nothing else stayed the same, when she woke he knew she would at least be happy about that.

When she woke... _if_ she woke...

In spring, in summer, in autumn and winter, he came and brought her offerings, gifts to tempt her out of the sleep that she would have called an enchantment. For five bright green springs. Just as many hot long summers. A handful of golden glorious autumns with their red, red leaves. Five glistening winters. And still she did not wake, and Nick began to wonder if his daughter ever would.

**.**

Sometimes there were voices in the darkness. Whispers like the sound of snow falling or leaves rustling on a breeze. Most of the voices were dismissive, the words jumbled and jagged and too fast for any sense to be made of them. Sometimes when those voices came, there would be a pricking sensation too. Needles pressing sharp and icy. Or sometimes the touch of fingers against neck or wrist or elbow along with the soft murmurs. Yet none of these voices actually seemed to speak.

One voice spoke, though. Soft words, slurred, unknowable. Dark whispers. Shadow words. Could see them against the darkness behind her eyelids. Hands touched, neither rough nor gentle. Hair, chest, stomach, thighs. Cold hands, slick with something sticky and slimy. Not impersonal like the others. Didn't like it. Had to go away when that person came. Had to go to sleep.

And then sometimes there were other voices, and then it was time to wake up a little bit. Three people who always came. These were familiar. Safe. Slow and soft, gentle. Coaxing. _Come back. Open your eyes. Just squeeze my hand. You can do it. I'm so sorry. I should have been there. I'll be better if you just come back. He's doing okay; you don't have to worry about him. My poor baby. Wake up._ Kind voices. Safe voices, safe place, safe. But so hard to do what they asked. So hard to be anywhere but in the black.

A single flick of a finger against a warm palm was nearly too much. The flicker of an eyelash too strenuous. Even simply swallowing took so much effort. Sleep came after every attempt, sleep and dark and oblivion for who knew how long.

How long in the dark? How long since seeing dawn breaking over the waters of the Hudson Bay? Feeling the wind tickling her skin and hair and tugging at her clothes? Hearing music pounding like a heartbeat, so hard the bass rattled her teeth? Tasting the sweetness of gourmet ice cream? Drowning in the syrupy perfume of honeysuckle in summer? Too long. Couldn't remember what those things were like anymore; only that they existed.

So tired. So very tired. Hard to push through the sticky webs of sleep. Hard to fight the need to go away and rest. Keep resting. So tired all the time, had to keep resting. It was nice to rest when one of the voices, rich and deep and warm, sang slightly out of key. When that voice read words to her, slow and storylike. Nice to sleep, safe, with the reassuring pressure of fingers wrapped around hers.

Yet nicer still, she knew, to wake. One day she would wake up, and find dawn and wind and music and ice cream and honeysuckle again. No more voices. Only people. Only the world. So much nicer to finally wake.

One day.

**.**

_In another place and time..._

He drifted for a long while in darkness, the cold of space more bitter and biting than the icy wastes of Jötunheim. Stardust offered little light or warmth in the dark. How long he fell, Loki had no idea. Only that by the time he plummeted to the desert sands like a falling star, his skin had transformed from the paleness of the Asgardians to deathly mazarine with Frost Giants' power and his eyes flamed scarlet as crystallized blood.

The impact ripped the breath from his lungs. In its place came fire searing his chest, raking molten claws across his belly. He sucked in air and choked on the dust of desert wastes. Meltwater from the ice coating his throat soothed the ache. Let him breathe a little. Gave him enough peace from the dust to allow him to think.

Midgard. This was Midgard. Earth, its people called it. He was trapped here, on this pitiful rock, because Thor had shattered the Bifröst. There would be no returning home for him. He was trapped in this pathetic mortal prison... for how long?

Until he found a way to return. To prove to his father that he was fit to be the son of Odin, and that he was Thor's equal. He would have to find a way. Something powerful enough to defeat Mjölnir, for one thing. Something stronger than the Cask of Ancient Winters. Something strong enough to destroy Jötunheim and hold Asgard in his grip. The glowing beacon of Jöttun magic, bright and chill, that called to him like a breath of soothing winter.

In the meantime, he had to get up. Get up out of the dust and come up with some sort of plan. All well and good, to say what needed to be done. The true test would be to actually _do_ it.

He struggled to his feet, the smoldering pain in his chest flaring into an agonizing wildfire. There was one thing he could do. He could search for that energy source. He could find it and harness it. And then he would use it to rebuild the Bifröst, and he would return home. As Asgard's prodigal prince... or as its conqueror.

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_**Author's Note, and the Purpose of This Fic:**_ _So the deal is, I have this fanfic for_ Hellboy II. _And this woman, Reme Sandra Couch, recommended this_ Thor _fanfic to me by Alydia Rackham called "Fallen Star." But there was a catch. The fanfic was a Jane/Loki pairing. I was like, "Psht. Whatever, no way, that's just dumb."_

_Then, randomly, I decided to give it a shot just to see what was so great about this fic, and I fell in love not only with the pairing, but with the character of Loki (not in a romantic way, but in an "OMG how did I not realize how awesome this character is?" way. And I decided he needed to be... given more credit, I suppose, and more screen/page time than he is in the film._

_But I didn't want to break up the pairing of Thor and Jane (I like that pairing). So I started this fic to fix both problems. And because I think there's more to Nick Fury than meets the eye. Hope you enjoy it._


	2. Words and Lies and Whispers

_**Author's Note:**_ _so this is the first chapter. I'm not sure if this was clear from the prologue, but the events of the scene with Loki take place a few years__after_ _the rest of the prologue. This chapter takes place the same night as Loki's...fall? This fanfic will try to blend mythology with Marvel. We'll get...Marvelthology? I dunno. Something like that._

_**About the Language:**__ The words "Min Drottning" mean "My Queen" in Swedish. In this fic I have used the proper spelling of all Norse mythological stuff—Jotunheim is actually Jötunheim, Bifrost is Bifröst, and Mjollnir is Mjölnir. And Balder/Baldur is Baldr.__However, Midgard remains unchanged because the actual spelling of the real word looks kind of like it should say "Miogaro." At least to me._

_**About One Word Specifically:**__ I prefer the spelling of_ bjørn _to_ björn. _However_, björn _is the Swedish version of the word. So that's my one major artistic license - I'm using the Danish (I think Danish) version of the word, which is_ **bjørn**, _instead of the Swedish version, because I like the way it looks better. However, I say that that version of the word is Swedish in the story. It's a preference thing._

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_**Chapter One  
>Words and Lies and Whispers<strong>_

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"Can you see Loki, Heimdall?"

The Guardian of the shattered Bifröst did not glance away from the vast sea of stars glittering beyond the edges of the Rainbow Bridge as his queen stepped lightly onto the crystalline pathway. He looked, as he always looked for Frigg. Looked beyond Jötunheim, where her foster son had been born in ice and shadow. Beyond the other Realms, all the way to Midgard's gleaming city spires of glass and iron, their forests frozen and tropical, their Realm of snow-capped mountains and crashing oceans. And as he always told his queen, he said, "I do not see him, _Min Drottning_, but if he is anywhere, it is on Midgard."

He knew that his queen wanted more than this. That she asked not only for herself, but for Prince Thor and for Odin the All-Father, who loved the son of King Laufey as their own blood. But he could not speak the words Frigg wanted so desperately to hear.

Heimdall could not tell her if Loki Tricksmith was dead or alive.

**.**

Steven Rogers stared at the old-fashioned radio—_Old-fashioned? These were_ the _thing to listen to back when I...back when I was...before_, he thought, and swallowed down the twinges of something that didn't quite feel like bitterness or grief, but certainly weren't happiness or contentment. He ignored whatever it was in favor of staring at the lid of his compass. The feeling that came from that was easier to describe.

Pain. Straight as a razor's edge, bright as a drop of blood on white snow. Acidic as snake venom. All from looking at the dark curls tumbling around Peggy's shoulders, the dark lashes and the curl of her lip as she arched a brow at whatever schmuck happened to be behind the camera. Black and white and shades of gray. Only in his mind could he recall vivid colors. The wine-red of her mouth, the smooth ivory of her silk blouse, the chocolate of her eyes, the chestnut hair cut like some glamorous film starlet. If he closed his eyes, Steve knew he could even trace the curve of Peggy's cheek and the delicate line of her collarbone, the slope of her neck melding into her shoulder.

One kiss. Just one. A press of lips, a thundering of hearts. A single moment of nothing but Peggy's soft mouth and the taste of her on his tongue. Why hadn't he tried for more than just one? Why hadn't he tried to kiss her sooner?

"You shouldn't brood about the past," said a soft, slightly rasping voice from the open door to his room. Steve looked up from the photo and frowned. A girl—maybe his age, but probably a few years younger—limped into the Spartan bunk. One arm carried a white and red paper sack with what looked like a golden M splashed on the front. Grease stained the bottom.

Her other arm was slipped into a medium-sized silvery brace attached to a crutch. Three metal bands looped her arm: one at the wrist, one at mid-forearm, the last clasping just beneath the elbow. Mottled fingers gripped a rubber-covered handle. Steven could tell by the way she held her right foot at a stiff angle to her body that without this brace, she wouldn't have been able to walk at all. She crutched over to the little desk beside the bed where he sat and levered herself into the chair. Then she tossed him the bag.

"Special Agent Fury asked me to talk to you, Captain."

Steven didn't answer her; simply peeked into the bag, which crackled noisily. The scent of hamburgers and fries teased his nose. Underneath of that, the sweet spice of apple pie. The soldier looked back at the girl. Raised an eyebrow. The girl shrugged.

"Nothing as American as baseball, burgers, and apple pie. Or so I've been told. Wouldn't actually know, seeing as I've never been to a baseball game in my life." At the older man's look, she smiled. It didn't quite reach her eyes. "Not on the radio, not in a stadium, not on television or in a movie. I'm not much of a team sports person." She held out a hand. A long, slightly jagged pink scar ran from the inside of her wrist to her elbow. "You're Steven Rogers. Captain America. Nice to meet you."

He shook her hand. Her fingers were long and slim and felt oddly brittle in his grasp. When she pulled her hand back again, one of her knuckles grated strangely under her skin. Steven noticed two of her fingers didn't bend at the middle joints. "And you are?"

"Rory," she replied, sounding aggrieved. "But I prefer Alex."

Steve blinked. "How do you get Alex out of Rory?"

She smiled a little brighter. It didn't quite reach her eyes this time, either. "You don't." She indicated the bag with a lift of her chin. "You going to eat those, or wait for them to get cold?" The girl waited until he'd eaten half of the first burger before opening her mouth again. "Like I said—you shouldn't brood about the past. So I've heard. It's past, you lost it, you've been in cryogenic stasis for like, ever, frozen in an iceberg. Lucky you. At least everyone you know is dead so you don't have to worry about dealing with them now that they're not the people you knew anymore."

A cold sort of anger, the kind he hadn't felt since Bucky...since the train, and Bucky..._for a long time,_ he growled at himself, frosted across his skin and slipped like mountainous meltwater down Steven's spine. Lucky him? _Lucky him?_ What did this girl know about losing everyone you loved because you were stuck in a giant frozen chunk of ice for sixty-odd years? His heart slammed hard against his ribs once. Twice. He crushed the fries he'd been holding in one fist without conscious thought.

"Excuse me?" Every syllable was a glacial slap.

The girl—Rory, or Alex, or whatever her name was—dragged herself to a standing position and headed at an agonizing limp toward the door. "You heard exactly what I said, Captain. Lucky you. You're alive. Red Skull isn't. Count your blessings and stop drooling over some girl who's probably dead already. And if she's not dead, she's forgotten all about you. So suck it up and deal."

And she crutched out the door.

Steven just stared after her, incredulous, for a long moment. Then he threw the rest of the food in the trash. He'd lost his appetite.

**.**

Her knuckles ached from squeezing the handle of her crutch. The bones stood out nearly white against the soft tan of her normal skin tone. Thorns of pain seared a jagged path from her hairline to her temple as her heart-rate and blood-pressure spiked. Crap. Crap, crap, _crap._ Why was she here? Why had she agreed to come down from the Tower and do this? Just because the high and mighty director of S.H.I.E.L.D. asked her to? Just because he'd asked her to get this man, this hero, this Steven Rogers, to "stop moping" and join the Avengers Initiative?

Like she cared about the stupid Avengers Initiative. Like she _wanted_ to be the one to deliver Fury's message. It was wrong, on so many levels. Wrong to lie to Captain Rogers. Wrong to parrot S.H.I.E.L.D.'s idiocy as if she actually believed it. Let the poor guy miss his past. Let him mourn what he'd lost. Why not? Pushing down how he felt about it wasn't going to help anyone except, maybe, the governing board. For sure it wouldn't help the Avengers. Wasn't this Captain America supposed to be the eventual leader of the team?

Because they had "so much" in common, according to the S.H.I.E.L.D. director, he'd wanted Alex to talk to Steven first. The thought coated her tongue with something sour. In common? They had nothing in common. What she'd been through was _nothing_ compared to what Captain America had suffered. It probably hadn't even felt the same—the impact of the HYDRA ship with the water versus a car accident. She hadn't died in the car crash, either. Hadn't passed out then. Steven had hit the water and that was the last thing he remembered. But she remembered more than that -

- _Flash of blood red out the window  
>Shockwaves smashing through the car<br>Metal shrieking in protest  
>Shouting, screaming<br>Fire ripping through her leg, her arm  
>Dull agony throbbing through the back of her skull<br>Spinning, spinning, spinning  
>Then falling out of the car onto the glass-sprinkled pavement<br>Coulson's face  
>Blurred by tears and blood in her eyes as he jumped out of the pursuing car<br>The concussive boom of a gunshot  
>Coulson falling to the ground...<em>-

And now she was choking on the dry, disinfected staleness of the recycled air and the fluorescents were sending spindle-pricks of pain shooting through her right temple and forehead. Alex leaned her head back against the cool steel of the hallway wall. Turned her head to the metal wall and took a deep breath. The sharp cool scent of the metal, slightly copper at the very back of her throat, helped her to regulate her breathing.

She couldn't hyperventilate right now. Couldn't get overexcited. Couldn't really do anything that made her blood throb or her heart race because then she'd get a migraine and she wouldn't find out what was going on.

So she was just a civilian. Didn't matter. She'd informed General Fury that as a resident of both S.H.I.E.L.D. Underground and the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, she and the other adult civilian residents ought to at least be told what was happening, if not allowed to take part.

Alex flexed her fingers around the brace's handle. Like it was even possible for her to take part, even if she'd had any powers. As if her father would let her.

The _click-click_ of her father's steel-toed boots on the metal walkway plucked at her attention. Each sharp tap of heel and toe to steel flooring sent tiny bolts of pain pinging through her skull. Alex took another breath. Time to give the damage report. She pushed off the wall, taking a minute to situate her body so she wouldn't trip trying to crutch toward the approaching S.H.I.E.L.D. director. Then she moved toward her father.

**.**

"Did it work?" Nick asked softly as Rory—he could never think of her as Alex—came down the corridor. The stormy look in her eyes made him wonder if she were pissed at him, and if so, whether it was over what he'd told her to do, or the nearly-killer headache he was fairly certain brewed behind her eyes. "Did you talk to him?"

"Yes," she hissed, gripping the handle on the crutch tighter. Her father turned to walk with her as she brushed past him.

When she made it to the elevator and punched a series of buttons, he realized she was heading back to her rooms in the Underground Reverse-Tower. Not acceptable. She needed to go outside, get some sun. Some air that wasn't recycled. She looked pale enough that most people would have been surprised to know she was his daughter in the first place. She had to stop hiding out there, in the gloom and shadows.

But Rory continued, "I told him what you wanted me to tell him, which is bogus, and then I left. Not that it will do much good. He didn't appreciate the message coming from cute little me, either. And now he thinks I'm a complete witch."

The elevator shifted into gear, and she stumbled. He reached out to steady her and she jerked back from him, nearly losing her balance again. Right. He'd let himself forget—when she was doing S.H.I.E.L.D. work, especially S.H.I.E.L.D. work she didn't agree with, she didn't want him to help her. Nick wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to the little girl who would run up and ask him to hoist her onto a counter because she couldn't reach the Lucky Charms.

"Why do you care what he thinks of you?" The government agent asked casually. When his daughter said nothing, he added, "Maybe you sympathize with him. You two're kinda in the same boat, right?"

She shook her head. "Saying he and I are in the same boat is so disrespectful to what he's experienced. He lost sixty years stuck out in that ice. I've read the file, I know what happened. He saved millions of people, and lost more than _sixty years_. I only lost a _tenth_ of that, and I wasn't even saving anyone. I was just stupid enough to get taken hostage. Let him mourn what he's lost if he wants to. Why shouldn't he? He had a life, people he loved. Like that girl in the picture. It's not right to say he can't miss those things."

Nick studied Rory in the fluorescent lights of the elevator. The only thing, he thought, that hadn't changed about her was her hair. It had grown fast in the hospital. She wore it now in a ponytail to the middle of her back, just like she had in high school. But other than that...

Most of the time it seemed as if there was nothing left of the daughter he'd known in the woman she'd become. She didn't dance anymore; couldn't, with her leg a mangled wreck. She never looked at the old videos of her recitals and performances. Didn't seem to taste the sweetness of honeysuckle or see the beauty of the dawn breaking over the waters of the Bay. Never looked at the fire of golden leaves in autumn or made thimble and paperclip pictures in the window frost. Didn't try contacting her old friends from high school anymore. She simply stayed in her Tower, her nose buried in the books Coulson brought her.

What, if anything, did she miss from her old life? Nick didn't know. Rory wouldn't tell him. She wouldn't talk about anything before the accident and attack that had put her in an almost-six-year coma.

The elevator doors hissed open and she stepped out. Nick forced the door to remain open by bracing his weight against it. "Rory?" She didn't turn around. "Alex?" His daughter stopped and turned back to him. "I know I said we'd have dinner tonight, but with Captain Rogers here, and the Cube here too...I need to get some men on that." When she just watched him with blank eyes, he added, "We'll do dinner some other night. I promise. But we've got a consultant coming in tonight and he needs to be briefed on the situation. I want to tell you because I know you don't like not knowing what's going on-"

"Thanks, Dad," she said softly, and smiled. It was the same smile she'd given Steven—bright as phosphorescence, empty as blown glass, never once touching her eyes. "Coulson and I can order pizza or something from the eatery." She limped off down the hall, an awkward and out of place shadow in dark clothes against the polished brightness of the steel corridor.

"Crap," Nick muttered. The elevator door slid shut. "Blew it again."

**.**

The night was dark and cold as Loki Odinson—_no,_ he reminded himself, swallowing back salt and jagged glass. _I am Loki Laufeyson, aren't I?_—slid through the shadows beneath the earth. He strode along labyrinthine tunnels, prowling after the mortals delving deeper into the underground building. They were going to the artifact which they referred to as "the Cube." A relic they could never hope to truly understand. A tesseract.

They would lead the enshadowed Loki to the tesseract. And once he saw what the Midgardians meant to do with it, he would figure out what needed to be done in order to secure its power.

Narrowed jade eyes tracked the slow, timid steps of the white-haired Midgardian that gawked at his surroundings. His escort veered off and left him to traverse the final few feet alone. It seemed to take the old man an inordinate amount of time. Could he not hurry up and get where he was going? This place, Loki thought, was nothing exceptional. A series of simple, maze-like tunnels formed out of an odd glittering gray stone, ribbed with steel bones. The mortal's footsteps echoed off the metal walkways. Crunched with the dirt caked to his poorly-made brown boots.

Another mortal caught Loki's attention. For just a moment all the pseudo-Æsir could see was the dark-veiled figure, the gleam of sienna light like battlefires on black leather, the stygian emptiness where an eye had once been. For just a moment, all Loki Odinson could remember was a tall and broad-shouldered man astride a tenebrous eight-legged horse saddled with darkness, the golden spire of Gungnir in one upraised hand, the wreck of a ruined eye dressed by an aurulent patch, the remaining eye of keen blue burning like the heart of a newborn star as it surveyed its foes.

Then the mortal with the eye patch spoke, and the memory was shattered. In its wake were only fragments of ice biting deep into Loki's chest. He ignored the frigid chill, as he ignored the Jötunn ice that still frosted his blood, and focused instead on the humans.

"Dr. Selvig."

Erik barely managed to suppress a startled jump at the sound of his name. He turned to see a tall, dark-skinned man with his hands hidden in the pockets of his long black coat, watching him with one darkly gleaming eye. Where the other should've been was nothing but a black eye patch and a mound of scar tissue. A thin black goatee gave the lean face a feral cast. Who exactly _was_ this guy?

"So you're the man behind all this?" Erik said, trying for joviality. "It's quite a labyrinth." A nervous chuckle barely managed to croak out of his throat. Nothing close to the hail-fellow-well-met voice he'd intended. Swallowing hard, he added with another weak laugh, "I was thinking, 'They're taking me down here to kill me.'"

And that, Erik thought with the first skitterings of true fear scritching up and down his spine like spiders, would've been the perfect time for this man to have laughed and assured him that S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to do nothing of the kind. It would've been the perfect time for him to say that government agencies didn't ask someone to get into a nondescript car with tinted windows and no way to open the back doors from the inside, just to drive that person all the way to a secure government facility and lead them underground, just to kill them because this hypothetical person knew too much about things like the Einstein-Rosen Bridge and the Foster Theory and what had happened in Puente Antiguo. This would have been the absolute perfect time to say all of that, and maybe laugh a little.

Instead, that single eye fixed on Erik like a cobra's gaze would fixate on a mouse. He didn't smile. His mouth didn't even so much as twitch. In fact, the look he slashed the astrophysicist with clearly stated, _That's a possibility if this doesn't go the way I want it to._

That agent, the one who had spoken to Jane when S.H.I.E.L.D. had confiscated her work—Colby? Copenhagen?—had said S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were the good guys.

Erik was starting to wonder about that.

Loki studied the two mortals through slitted eyes, trying to breathe around the ice shards still pricking under his skin and the smoldering pain in his chest that had not dissipated since smashing into Midgard. He hadn't had time to see to his injuries. The tesseract's pull had brought him to this...place, within hours of impact. And now he had to stand there, waiting for these imbecilic humans to _get to the point,_ so that he could find the relic and determine how best to use it.

What intrigued the prince, however, were the emotional currents surrounding the two mortals. The older human was suddenly, very much afraid of the one-eyed man in the leather coat. That fear whispered along the human's skin and frosted the air like a breath of coming winter. And yet the solder that watched this other human with the poisonous eyes of a snake wasn't actually paying much attention to him. In fact, this Nicholas Fury seemed almost...distracted. As if he were thinking of something, somewhere else. Some_one_ else. A person.

Loki was not a thought-senser. But his sorcerous abilities and aptitude for _seiðr_ opened his senses a little more than others to what was in the air. Every thought, every memory, every whisper of sentience, held magic. Held the essence of the one who'd birthed that thought or conjured that memory. It was a simple piece of magic, held even by animals. Even by mortals. And because he was a master at manipulating that magic, Loki caught a glimpse of what this warrior of Midgard allowed to distract him.

A woman, and a little girl, so much alike they must have been mother and daughter, or sisters.

The girl-child was young—maybe eleven, with the first blushes of womanhood. Bright eyes. Wild tangles of curly hair covered in bits of leaf debris and tiny twigs. Had these Midgardians never heard of brushes or combs? Green stained the knees of her blue trousers with the juices of crushed grass. And for some reason the mortal warrior pictured this child spinning in a whirlwind of golden leaves, laughing with inexplicable delight.

But the woman was altogether different, though she might have once been the spitting image of the girl. There was no laughter in this woman's empty eyes like brittle glass. There was _nothing_ there. Only an aching sorrow in the human soldier's mind. A terrible sense of loss. And the vision of her was smeared like a half-erased drawing.

Perhaps the woman was dead. Loki would have to investigate further at some point. Such a weakness could be easily exploited in any upcoming confrontations with this Midgardian soldier. He seemed to be in charge of this pathetic little band of mortals. A potential obstacle to obtaining the tesseract. The illusion of a dead wife as a weapon, perhaps, and a little girl as a bargaining chip, would probably not be strictly necessary...but it would make things much easier.

The question was, he supposed, did he want things to be easy...or fun?

"I've been hearing about the New Mexico situation," Nick said after a moment of silence as heavy as the air in the damp stone tunnels. "Your work has impressed a lot of people who are much smarter than I am."

_Like Rory,_ the S.H.I.E.L.D. director thought with a twinge. She'd pushed him and pushed him and pushed him to tell her what had him so distracted, what had him forgetting about their so-called "family counseling" sessions and their father-daughter dinner dates. He'd refused. Every time.

Finally she'd had Coulson bring her the files on the Cube.

The other agent still felt responsible for Rory's stolen dream of dancing, and for the coma that had ripped away six years of her life. Since Rory had a certain level of security clearance strictly by living in S.H.I.E.L.D. Underground and on the Helicarrier—all the civilian residents did—and because she occasionally did assignments for the government agency, it wasn't as huge a breach of protocol as it could've been, but even now it still caused a lot of tension between the two men.

It was also why Coulson had been assigned to deal with the migraine that was Tony Stark.

Rory had been impressed with what she'd read about Dr. Jane Foster and Dr. Erik Selvig and their research. Not one for astrophysics _per se_, she believed Arthur C. Clarke to be the king of bedtime reading and had a bit more grounding in interstellar whatever than the average layman. According to Coulson, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent had the same grounding. "Got it from watching _Star Trek_," he'd said. So both of them knew enough about the theories and what else was in those files to get a vague picture and understand that maybe these two scientists could actually be useful as expert civilian consultants.

"I have a lot to work with," Erik replied diffidently. The obsidian of this man's eyes made his gut clench into a hard, cold knot. There was nothing overtly threatening in the way he was acting, but...there was still an odd feeling. Like being watched by a coyote. He hastened to add, "The Foster Theory. A gateway to another dimension. It's unprecedented."

Nothing but silence from the man Erik was beginning to think was the leader of the secretive S.H.I.E.L.D. agency.

Unable to bear that silence, the physics doctor added, "Isn't it?"

"Legend tells us one thing, history another. But every now and then, we find something that belongs to both." Something Rory had always said.

Nick ground his teeth and grounded himself in the present. He needed to focus. So instead of wondering if he should've put this meeting off until tomorrow, instead of wondering if he should've invited her to come along and see what he had to show Dr. Selvig, he opened the silver containment case Stark had built for S.H.I.E.L.D. Twin flickers of aether-blue in the doctor's eyes reflected the cyanotic glow of the Cube. Veins of neon red from the wiring cast an almost demonic sharpness to the lined doctor's face.

The astrophysicist had never seen anything like it. "What _is_ it?" The question almost wheezed out of him, the strain and strangeness of what he was seeing strangling his voice. He glanced up at the director's face. Into that single dark eye kept carefully blank.

Nick subtly arched a brow. "Power, Doctor." He glanced back down at the luminous Cube. At the tiny cracks in its surface. Tiny particles of static sparked along the edges of the cracks. The SHIELD director already knew from Captain America that the Cube had been damaged during his fight with Johann Schmidt. Now he studied each hairline fracture with a vulture's eye for weakness. Studied the non-terrestrial symbols, nearly the same color blue as the Cube itself, etched lightly into all its sides. There was a secret there. Someone just had to unlock it. "If we can figure out how to tap it," he added, "maybe unlimited power."

Loki sneered. Power? Unlimited power? Was that _all_ they saw? Did they even understand what unlimited power was? This relic, this artifact, this...this cosmic instrument, could reorder time and space at the whim of its wielder. He could feel all of that power, all of that potential. It thrummed just under his skin like hot blood. Throbbed through his bones like a toothache. Whispered to him like the wind, sang for him like a rhinemaiden.

Once, as boys, his brothers—he'd had more than one then. Thor who was the eldest; and Baldr, now long dead; and Víðarr, who had sworn himself no kin of Loki's; and little Bragi, who had always been so fragile—had rashly dared him to lay his bare hands to Mjölnir's haft. Baldr had only been poking fun, but Víðarr had insisted he do it. His eyes had been cool and appraising as they judged this younger son of their father and found him wanting yet again. And both his little brother and Thor had been terrified that something awful would happen to Bragi's favorite eldest brother if Loki dared touch the ensorcelled hammer without the aid of Járngreipr, the iron gauntlet Odin used to wield Mjölnir's power.

It was this last, more than anything else, that had made him do as Víðarr had urged him. To ease his little brother's fear. Their father wouldn't leave such a thing unguarded if it was so dangerous, surely. And to prove to Thor that he was just as brave as the golden prince. So he had touched the mighty hammer that was Thor's inheritance. Touched it, and for a moment he'd felt the power humming through the haft and the heavy iron head.

Then had come the pain.

It had taken all four of his brothers to pry his hand from Mjölnir's handle, and by then his palm had been blistered white practically all over and even Víðarr had not teased him about the tears running unchecked down his cheeks. Loki had learned an important lesson that day. So he wasn't going to simply snatch up this so-called Cube and make off with it like a thief in the night. He would allow the humans to learn of it while he gathered his strength and determined the best course of action. Once they'd laid the groundwork, then he would see.

"Well," the one called Tricksmith, Master of Mischief and Lies, whispered like a chill breath through the older mortal's skull. He saw the old man barely manage to suppress a shiver. "I guess that's worth a look."

Wondering where the words were coming from even as he said them, Erik murmured, "Well, I guess that's worth a look."

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_**Author's Note:**_ _So Odin never wielded Mjölnir as far as I know, but you see Mjölnir in the film during that clip when Loki and Thor are all cute and adorable and young, so I'm thinking in the Marvel-verse it was handed down from father to eldest son? Just an idea. Thor in mythology_ did _wear an iron gauntlet called Járngreipr so that he could wield Mjölnir (which was red-hot, apparently) without damage._

_Thor, Baldr, Víðarr, and Bragi are all biological sons of Odin, though they all had different mothers (Thor's mother was the primordial goddess Fjörgyn; Baldr's mother was Frigg, Odin's wife; Víðarr's mother was the frost giantess Gridr; and Bragi's mother is never named, although if it's Frigg, she doesn't like him much)._

_And the fairy tale themes this fic will most likely be incorporating are as follows—the Snow Queen, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Snow White and Rose Red (not to be confused with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves)._

_And even though I don't__usually__ask__for them, I do like reviews. A lot. I usually do review prompts for those who can't think of what to comment on once my fics pic up speed. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. I try to update regularly (at least once a month) for the fics that I'm pushing hard with, like this one._

_**Translation:**__"seiðr" is Nordic/Viking sorcery._


	3. Luminous Pearl

_**IMPORTANT:**__okay, everyone,__my 2 books are coming out soon!__Yes, my original fiction works (one young adult urban fantasy and one inspirational romance) will be available on Amazon for the Kindle for $3.99 (who remembers when books were that cheap on paper? I do! I remember when a standard RL Stine's Fear Street paperback book was four bucks. Ahhh, inflation. Anyways...)._ And just so you know how much bang for your buck we're talking here, my YA novel is 92,000 words (a little bit thicker than _Twilight_). My romance is a typical category romance, around 70,000 words. And for those of you who don't have that sort of electronic bookie thing, both books are available in paperback on Amazon, too! Please buy them! I don't want to get evicted from my apartment and they upped my rent by like...a lot. (T.T)

My books are called _Glass_ and _Their Forever Family_, and both will be under my penname, LA Knight. =) If you check out my new profile pic, it's the front cover for _Glass_! I've got 2 other books coming out some time, as well. So keep an eye out, yeah? Yay!

_**Author's Note:**_ _so here's chapter 2. Yay! I hope you like it. This is a romance, by the way. I feel I should remind people of this because this is going to be what I like to refer to as a "slow steamer"—a story that has a lot of sensual tension, then a lot of sexual tension, and then...well, we'll see. Anyway, hope you like. Any questions, comments, smart remarks you may have, or even just pointing out a typo that I missed, is always appreciated. And I always respond to my reviewers (if they're logged in so I can PM people; otherwise I'm out of luck)._

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_**Chapter Two  
>Luminous Pearl<strong>_

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There were a lot of things Alex Fury could do with her copious amounts of spare time.

Moping was one of them. Crying like a baby because her leg looked kind of like one of those donuts that was just one long stick of dough folded in half and then twisted around and around like a sugar-glazed rope. Do her physical therapy, which was something to do but was pretty much pointless since no amount of stretching or strengthening exercises would ever allow her to dance again. Practice on the guitar; she loved music. It was the only time, Coulson said, where she ever smiled for real. And it was the only instrument she could (eventually) learn to adequately play since not all of her fingers bent properly. She could read one of the countless books lining the shelves of her circular room.

Those were all well and good (or not, depending). Wholesome activities that didn't involve acts of a potentially illegal nature—if she got caught, anyway. But instead of doing any of those things, she was going to work on her apology skills. After all, her guilt had had more than a week to fester. It was starting to get irritating.

Typing on the computer was hard. She'd been left-handed before her coma but had lost almost complete use of her index, middle finger, and pinkie when the shattered middle-joints had fused together on the first two and the broken first-joint had healed improperly on the smallest digit. Inconvenient when attempting fretwork on her guitar. Nigh impossible to type with. She'd learned how to do a lot of things right-handed in occupational therapy. Luckily, her computer obeyed voice commands.

"Open program S.H.I.E.L.D.-Kay-one-five-five, sub-program Tee-Aych-twelve," Alex murmured into the microphone on her headset. She absolutely adored Tony Stark. He made good hacking programs, and let her use them since it would irritate her dad. Not that Alex was _trying_ to irritate the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.. She wasn't. In fact, she hated upsetting her dad. She was just trying to assuage the gnawing guilt that had been slowly chewing its venomous little way through her chest since her conversation with Captain Rogers. As the window sprang to life on her computer monitor, she added, "Search personnel database for Margaret 'Peggy' Carter."

_"Margaret "Peggy" Carter  
>"Former agent of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, US Army<br>"British citizen  
>"Born 22 July 1914..."<em>

She shoved aside a stack of paperback novels to get to her speakers, accidentally knocking two from the top of the stack. The pale blue cover of _Ïs_ by Sarah Beth Durst and the sea-green cover of _Öst_ by Edith Pattou gleamed on the floor. The polar bears on the covers of both books seemed to look up at her beseechingly, begging for rescue from her ratty white carpet. Stretching to reach them, she muttered, "Blah, blah, don't need her background information. Search file, keyword 'deceased.' Search now."

It seemed that Former Agent Margaret "Peggy" Carter had been married once—to a Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader "Dum Dum" Dugan. What a mouthful. She'd heard her dad talk about "Dum Dum" Dugan before.

In fact, Alex realized with a start, she'd met the man before. He'd been deputy director of the Helicarrier when she had been a little girl. _He used to escort me to the elevators whenever he saw me because he knew I was scared of them,_ she thought. The brief flash of memory made her temples throb for some reason, so she shoved it away and focused on the task at hand.

As it happened, Peggy Carter was _not_ dead. She was almost ninety years old, but she wasn't dead. Wasn't even in a nursing home. She lived in a little brownstone in New York City near some placed called the Stork Club. Alex printed out a picture of what Peggy Carter looked like now, what she'd looked like back in 1941, and printed out her address and a map of how to get there from S.H.I.E.L.D. Underground. It wasn't against the rules for Steve to leave the compound, so...

Lastly, she hastily scratched a note on a pale green sticky pad. "Forget, or remember—it's your choice." Slapping it on the pages she paper-clipped together, she shut down the computer program, hauled herself to her feet, and limped out of her room.

**.**

These humans were ridiculously slow. Calculations and advanced mathematics and such were all well and good, but it constantly amazed Loki that Midgardians were forced to rely on such primitive methods when magic was so much quicker. Even more astonishing was that the mortals had made so much progress with such pitiful means. It had been nearly two weeks since that first look at the sorcery that contained enough power to jumpstart a universe. If he'd had the strength to harness the tesseract's powers he could have had things done quicker, true...but he didn't have the strength. He was healing, yes, but the sorcery required to heal kept him magically drained.

"I'm thinking of bringing Alex in on this," one of the human warriors said suddenly, dragging the Asgardian's attention back to the trio of mortals he'd been observing. The older mortal and the one-eyed general both stared at their comrade with a mix of incredulity and confusion of varying levels.

"Who's Alex?" The old one asked. "Another agent?"

Nick Fury shook his head. "Her name's not Alex; it's Rory. She's my daughter," he muttered, glaring at Coulson. He flicked a dismissive glance at the Cube before pinning his subordinate with his black-glass stare once more. "Who is not a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. and has no business getting involved in S.H.I.E.L.D. projects like this."

"Sir," Coulson replied, his voice all smooth politeness, "she's already seen the file. She may not know as much about this thing as Dr. Selvig here, but she knows as much about it as you or I do. And one thing she might be able to help with are the symbols on the sides of the Cube. The doctor here admitted that languages weren't his forte. Physics and astrophysics are. I say we ask Alex—er, Rory. It'd be better than calling in an outside consultant."

"Why? Because she's suddenly a linguist now? She's a twenty-three-year-old high school dropout. What kind of help could she possibly offer?"

Coulson shrugged. "She's not a linguist, no, but she speaks a few languages. German, Swedish. Look." Pulling out one of the glossy, eight-by-ten photos of the Cube, he flipped it around to show it to his boss. "See that right there?" He pointed to something that, although blurry, looked like it said "_bjørn_." The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent locked eyes with Nick. "Every time we touch the Cube with anything, even if we just poke it, different symbols and words appear. I recognize that word; I saw it on the back of one of Alex's books in her room. It's the Swedish word for 'bear.'

"And look, here." He indicated another word. Loki, studying the image as well with a frown, jerked in shock. Coulson continued, "I don't know this word, but it's got another symbol you see in the Swedish language, and if it _is_ Swedish, that word is something like _jötunn_."

"Jötunn?" Erik echoed. "That's a Nordic word. Means 'giant.' Usually a Frost Giant in Norse myth, but sometimes a Rock Giant. I only know that," he added when the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents turned their gazes on him, "because the jötunns are mentioned in the stories I grew up on as a kid. You know, stories about Asgard and Odin All-Father and-"

"And Thor?" Nick interjected. "The mighty Thunderer? Which also happens to be the name of the guy who crash-landed in Puente Antiguo, took out the unknown weaponized tech, then disappeared through the Einstein-Rosen Bridge?"

"Uh...yeah."

"So you know a lot about these myths, then."

Erik did _not_ like the way Fury was looking at him. He hastened to say, "No, not a _lot._ About as much as the average guy knows about the Grimms' fairy tales. Most kids grew up on 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Little Red Riding Hood.' I grew up on how Pjazi stole Thor's hammer. But I'm no expert by any means."

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents exchanged glances. "Sir, we could put her on it as a sort of secondary schtick. She's not our main researcher, but she might get something. You never know. All we have to give her is pictures. She doesn't even have to touch the thing. It's perfectly safe. And maybe it'll get her out of the Tower."

Nick frowned, staring at the word that Coulson said was Swedish for "bear." Why would the Cube have the word "bear" on it? In Swedish? Where had this thing even learned Swedish? It would make sense if the thing was spouting off random German. Rogers had said that Schmidt had touched the thing with his bare hands, so it could have imprinted on him or something. But Swedish?

"Fine," the S.H.I.E.L.D. director finally agreed. If it would get Rory out of the Tower..."It's just a loose end to chase, anyway, it's not that important. Copy all the photographs into a separate file for her. Let her see the pictures and try to translate whatever is on there. Maybe it'll mean something to her."

_Yes,_ Loki thought, frowning at the glossy photograph. _Maybe it will mean something to this...Rory._ Because none of the words meant anything to him, and he wanted to know what the accursed thing said. The prince would have to keep an eye on this Midgardian as she sought to unlock the secret of the tesseract's symbols. Perhaps she would surprise him.

**.**

Alex watched Captain Rogers pick up the manila folder and read the sticky note slapped onto the front. Then, as something that made it hard for her to breathe flooded the captain's face, she clumsily turned and limped back down the corridor, trying to be silent and stealthy. She didn't want to see what he decided to do. She didn't want to know if she'd made a mistake in giving him the information on his sweetheart. Doubts had plagued her the entire week after collecting the data, until finally Alex had said, "Screw it," and left it on his bunk for him to find. It was the only thing she could think of to apologize for the things she'd said.

In the elevator, she was reaching for the button when Coulson hailed her. The older S.H.I.E.L.D. agent nipped inside just before the doors hissed shut. "Hey, kiddo, I got something for ya." Coulson always called her "kiddo." It was one of the things he refused to change after her coma. Said it offered her a sense of continuity.

A slender brow quirked. "Is it a new book? That one science-fiction Cinderella story with the cyborgs is out, I think. The one with the red shoe on the cover."

Coulson flashed her a mock-apologetic look. "Um, no. Maybe next time. No, I've got something better. Yeah, I know what you're thinking," he added when she raised both eyebrows. "Nothing's better than books, I know. Except this." He held out a file with the standard "top secret" red stamp on the front. "Your dad wants you in on the Cube project as a translator."

"Translator for what?" Alex demanded, incredulous. Quickly Coulson filled her in on what they'd seen in the photographs of the Cube and its transforming symbols. She took the file and just barely managed to flip it open one-handed. Allowed her fingers to trace over the symbols on the slick surface of the topmost photo. Frowned as she studied the words lightly etched in luminous pearl on the mazarine surface of the Cube.

Noting her frown, the SHIELD agent asked, "So, can you read that?"

"I'm wondering," she admitted after another moment. "This doesn't make any sense."

The government agent frowned. "What? That's not Swedish?"

"No, it's Swedish, all right. The words just don't make sense. They're not even complete sentences. Like right here," she added, sliding a fingertip along a line of symbols. "This says, 'Need black bear.' What does that mean? And this says 'Caught in thorns.' Does this mean anything to you?"

Coulson shook his head. "Can you figure it out?"

"Maybe," she murmured, studying the elegant script in the picture. "Am I on a deadline for this?" When the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent shook his head again, she smiled. Coulson noticed it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Okay, then I've got time. Good. Well, this is my stop," she said as the elevator lurched to a halt. She clutched the folder possessively and began to limp into the hallway.

"Hey, kiddo, let's get out of here for a bit. Get some pizza or something. Watch that new _Nutcracker_ movie Natasha got from Red Box. I know you're pretty bummed about your dad not being able to make it, so-"

"I'm not hungry," said Alex, very gently to one of the men who had helped to raise her. "I'll get some crackers or something later. I've got some reading to do, so...how about a rain-check on that pizza?"

"Sure thing, kiddo." Coulson watched her hobble down the corridor, wondering if she'd lost count of how many times she'd said that to him. He'd miss-stepped somewhere in his invitation; he just wasn't sure where. It wasn't the pizza. She liked pizza. Was it the movie? Whatever it was, they had to do something to get her out of that Tower. Maybe they could lock her out for the day and see if she found her way towards sunlight, like a flower or something.

Yeah, okay, that wasn't happening. Ever.

**.**

In the Reverse-Tower, Alex sat at her desk and flipped open the file, staring at the top photograph again. _Need black bear._ What in the world could that possibly mean? _Caught in thorns._ And there was one other phrase on this side of the Cube. _The walls are falling up_. What walls? And how did things fall up? It almost read like Tim Burton meets Shel Silverstein—nonsense concepts mixed with disjointed bedtime-story imagery.

She pushed the topmost picture aside to look at the next. There were six photos paper-clipped together, and another six, and another six...she had no idea how many collections of six there were. She studied the second image of the first collection for a long moment. _In the long dark. Winter found him. Need black bear. Need son of the hearth. Fight winter blood._

Alex sighed and pulled on her headset for her computer. "Open program—Microsoft Word. New document. Save under 'Cube translations—Swedish.'" She nudged her mouse until the cursor hovered over the blank page. "Mouse click. Listen to me," she added, catching the computer's complete attention. "Record the following. 'Translation of image one-one-Ay through one-six-Ay, as follows...'" She flicked her gaze between the pictures and the screen as she spoke, to make sure the program recorded her words properly.

"_'Need black bear.  
>Caught in thorns.<br>The walls are falling up._

_"'In the long dark.  
>Winter found him.<br>Need black bear.  
>Need son of the hearth.<br>Fight winter blood._

_"'Need Grace through seasons  
><em>(notation, 'grace' is capitalized in text—a name?).  
><em>Need maker of broken things.<em>  
><em>Black bear lost.<br>Black bear need to find._

_"'Red Death touch spindle.  
>Sleep, cold sleep.<br>Long sleep in winter.  
>Blood on snow.<em>

_"'Sleeper need black bear.  
>Magic need black bear.<br>Wolf and bear come.  
>Magic from east of the sun.<br>Magic from west of the moon.'_

_"'Wolf run from winter blood.  
>Wolf lost to thorns.<br>Black wolf need Sleeper.  
>Sleeper's blood feeds thorns.<br>Red Death waiting to wake.'"_

Something nagged at her, hard enough that she didn't move on to the next set of pictures. Instead, she stared at the last two lines for a long moment. Then she grabbed one of the paperbacks off the stack beside her speakers. A sea green cover, with the aurora in watercolor in the corner, and a girl in a patchwork coat standing beside a huge polar bear. Edith Pattou's _Öst._ In English, it would have been _East_. An adaptation of the Scandinavian story, "East of the Sun, West of the Moon." And in that story, east of the sun and west of the moon had been...

Alex popped off the headset and, pushing with her good leg, shoved her chair over to one of her myriad of bookcases. She had a system—a whacky system, according to Coulson—when it came to organizing her books. She had a lot of retold faerie tales, and organized them not by author, but by title. First a copy or ten of the original story, followed by various versions of the same story from around the world (her "Cinderella" section was ginormous and took up an entire bookcase). Then there were the modern adaptations of each tale to shelve as well. So she went immediately to the E-section and found the first of many picture books entitled _East of the Sun, West of the Moon._ But there was one of the variations specifically that she was looking for.

She finally found it wedged near the very end of the picture books. The cover was a beautiful aerosol painting of a girl astride the back of a huge white bear. The bear wore a silver crown. They stood on a cliff of glacial blue ice overlooking a city of glittering frosted spires. The title was designed to look like icicles. _Kvitbjørn_ _Kung om Jötunheim._ _The White-Bear King of Jötunheim_. She flipped open the book to find the blurb written on the inside cover. Then she stared at the map painted on the inside of the picture book before scootching back to her computer. The headset clamped back around her ears, she flicked her mike back on.

"Notation," Alex said, staring at the lines of translated text on the screen, "common phrase in Scandinavian mythology, 'East of the Sun, West of the Moon.' Another name for the North Pole, known in Norse myth as Jötunheim, home of the frost giants. Possible correlation to unknown mutant from New Mexico incident, codename Thor. Possible secondary correlation to Tronsberg, Norway; contains a Viking temple where Johann Schmidt, codename Red Skull, found unknown object known as the Cube, behind an image of Yggdrasil, the Worlds Tree, cornerstone of Norse cosmology. Possible connection of Cube to Norse myth, likely?"

Glancing down at the glossy cover of _Kvitbjørn_ _Kung om Jötunheim,_ she murmured absently into the microphone, "Likely. Question of note—who is the black bear? In related myths, the bear is usually white. Only two exceptions. First is 'the Brown Bear of Norway.' Second is a modern novel where the bear transforms from black to brown to red to white, depending on the season. So who is the black bear? And why is it needed?"

Who was the sleeper? Alex wondered. Who was the Red Death? Who was the son of the hearth? Who or what was the wolf? Who or what was this so-called "magic" that needed the black bear? And what did any of it have to do with the Cube?

"What are you telling me?" She mumbled, tracing the embossed cover of her picture book while staring vaguely at the computer screen. "What are you telling me?"

That, Loki thought, peering over the mortal's shoulder at her work, was exactly what he wanted to know.

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_**Author's Note:**_ _So we've got a mystery, and we've brought Alex and Loki (sort of) together. Although he considers her basically a piece of furniture and she has no idea that he's there at all while he creepily spies on her. We'll see where this goes. Although this fic will include the other Avengers (except maybe Bruce, as I haven't seen_ the Incredible Hulk) _it is mostly Loki/cube/Alex-centric, so it's under_ Thor. _Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter. I look forward to hearing back from my readers. Have a great day!_

_**Note on the name of Alex's hacking program:**_ _S.H.I.E.L.D.-Kay-one-five-five, sub-program Tee-Aych-twelve looks like this—SHIELD-K155-TH12. Read properly, it says "Kiss this." Well, more like "Kiss thiz," but close enough._

_**Note on the Books:**_ _there is such a book as_ East _by Edith Pattou (in Swedish_, Öst). Ice _(in Swedish_, Is) _is a modern retelling of the same story, borrowing a bit from Inuit mythology (I think it's Inuit, at least. Arctic Native American, basically) by Sarah Beth Durst. There is unfortunately no book (as far as I know) called_ Kvitbjørn Kung om Jötunheim. _However, the title is inspired by the faerie tale "White-Bear King Valemon," which has its own movie_—the Polar Bear King. _The book Alex mentions where the bear changes colors is Dennis L. McKiernan's_ Once Upon a Winter's Night.


	4. The Sleeper

_**Author's Note:**_ _so here's chapter 3, where things start to pick up a little. I'm not one-hundred percent sure when this fic ends (I know the plotline, but I'm not sure how many words it will take to believably get to the end) so grab the popcorn. =) Huggles!_

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_**Chapter Three  
>The Sleeper<strong>_

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It took Alex six days to translate the entirety of the words from the photographs of the Cube. More than a couple of those days ended with her falling asleep at her desk. Coulson or her dad always checked in on her before going to bed themselves, and every time she'd dropped off in front of the computer, she'd woken later already in bed.

The final night before she finished, jostling nudged her out of a heavy sleep. She would've let herself drop off again, but the lilting trill of her computer shutting down woke her more fully. Alex blinked up at the bleary figure of Nick Fury as he lifted her out of her chair and started to carry her.

"Daddy?" Alex mumbled. The fingers of her good hand curled in the thick material of Nick's black sweater. "Wha's goin' on?"

"Nothing, Rory," he murmured. Irritation was a swift needle-prick at the back of her neck. That _wasn't_ her name anymore. But she was too tired to really protest."You fell asleep at your desk, that's all. Here, hang on to me for a second."

She obliged by wrapping her arms around her father's neck. He moved several picture books off her bed and drew back the blankets. Then he set her on the bed and covered her with the black knit blanket. He perched on the edge of the mattress, making it dip beneath his weight.

"Working hard on those Cube translations, huh?"

She curled up beneath the blanket. Her bad leg stuck out at a funny angle, but she was used to that by now. She tucked her stiff hand against her chest and closed her eyes.

"Somethin' to do," she slurred, tiredness already whispering to her. Beneath the sweetness of the lavendar fabric softener scenting her sheets, Alex could smell the familiar scents of her father's leather duster and his cologne. For just a second, she was three years old again, instead of twenty-three, and her father could keep her safe, and her parents were still married, and everything was still simple and easy and peaceful. "M'not bored."

"You wouldn't be bored if you went outside," Nick said softly.

Alex scrunched up under the covers and sighed quietly, pretending she was too sleepy to respond to Nick's not-so-subtle suggestion. The moment of being a little girl again was broken. She wasn't three-year-old Rory anymore. Now she was twenty-three-year-old Alex Fury, and she wasn't going outside. She had no reason to. There was nothing outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. Underground that she wanted, except for the stuff in her rooms on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.

Her father sighed. The mattress creaked as he got to his feet. His boots made muffled thumps against the ratty shag carpet of her room as he made his way to her bedroom door.

"Good night, Aurora," she heard Nick murmur. The door _clicked_ shut.

After several moments of near-silence in the murky dimness of her room, that silence broken only by the hum of the generators powering S.H.I.E.L.D. Underground and the shadows lit only by the soft glow of a few night-lights, Alex whispered, "Good night, Daddy."

**.**

Loki waited until the Midgardian warrior had left his daughter's room and the mortal girl was truly asleep before taking a seat at her desk and waking her computer. After nearly a month on Midgard, and after a week of watching the human girl use the machine, Loki knew enough about how it operated to use it effectively. To help ensure the girl didn't awaken, he unplugged her speakers. The quiet buzz of the computer coming to life mingled with the low humming of the machines that powered this underground fortress.

While the computer booted up, Loki turned his attention to the items on the girl's desk. He'd watched her off and on during her translation of the tesseract's strange and seemingly incomprehensible messages; when focusing on that task, it was like watching some dedicated scholar pursuing some philosophical theory or other. She'd been intensely focused on the task at hand, to the exclusion of nearly all else. Sometimes she'd even forgotten to eat.

The clutter scattered across her workspace was completely at odds with such dedication to her goal. Various commercial novels and illustrated storybooks clearly intended for Midgardian children; a squishy, translucent pink ball that lit up when thumped against a hard surface; a stack of thin plastic cases holding metal disks that Loki knew played instrumental music when inserted into her computer; a crimson plastic bag full of multi-colored, pea-sized little beans the girl would sometimes chew when thinking hard; a few metallic blue aluminum cylinders filled with some sort of beverage, the cans adorned with a strange red and blue circle—the Midgardian would drink from one when it grew late into the night.

As the computer screen lit up, Loki noticed something else, something he'd seen the mortal stare at for long periods of time before beginning the translations: a music box. Atop the silver-gilt white device stood a tiny porcelain figurine in a short, pale violet shift, its arms over its head and one leg bent at a strange angle. A dancer of some kind. The human girl had more than two dozen such music boxes, but the rest she kept in a locked glass case in her closet.

Loki's natural curiosity, his _need_ to know _everything_ about the world around him and the people he intended to use for his plans, had forced him to try and get as much information about the Midgardian girl as possible. It had been surprisingly difficult thus far.

He entered the necessary passwords when the computer demanded them. He'd only needed to spy on her entering them once to memorize them, though the pseudo-Asgardian couldn't figure out as to what they pertained: passwords such as _Ladder-Locks_ and _Beauty Asleep_. He found her translation files easily. Their password seemed more pertinent: _Black Bear_. Reading the translations took less time than he'd originally anticipated—she'd laid everything out in a way that was very easy to understand. Storing the information in his memory, he closed the files.

A folder at the bottom of the screen caught Loki's eye. _K155TH12_. Thin, pale lips quirked into a smirk at the corners.

_"Kiss this_,_"_ he thought. _Midgardian defensive sarcasm. How charming_. He remembered that the program the girl had used to hack S.H.I.E.L.D.'s personnel database had a similar name. Without a moment's hesitation, Loki clicked on the folder. Perhaps there was something useful inside.

Immediately a window popped up demanding a password. He'd never seen the human access this folder before, so he had no idea what the password for this one might have been. He closed the folder.

Another bit of information to ferret out. It wasn't as if he didn't have the time. He certainly did. He could wait until the girl accessed the folder. After all, if it was coded against being read by anyone without clearance, it was something important, and she'd more than likely need to look at it again. Perhaps even sometime soon.

Since he had what he'd come for, Loki shut the computer down once more and plugged the speakers back in. Then, using a bit of magic, he let himself be whisked out of the Midgardian realm to the _between_ place he'd decided to use as his temporary camp.

**.**

Steve didn't know what to do with the folder that someone—he had more than a sneaking suspicion it was Rory-Call-Me-Alex—had left on his bunk. Now he knew that Peggy, _his_ Peggy, was alive. Alive and well. But old. He didn't know what age had done to her features, how time had changed her. He couldn't bring himself to look at the printed photograph of her as she was now. Why had Rory given this to him?

_That's just what I'm going to ask her_, Steve told himself when he spotted Rory limping down the corridor.

"Miss Rory," Steve called. Rory stopped walking, rocking back on her heel to pivot so she faced him. Her expression was carefully neutral, with just a touch of polite expectation. The Army captain jogged over to her. "Miss Rory—"

"Alex," she said. "My name is Alex. And drop the 'miss,' please. Makes me feel old."

After a moment, Steve said, "If you tell me how you get 'Alex' out of 'Rory,' I'll call you Alex."

Hazel eyes darkened for a minute, then Rory inclined her head. "Okay. Fine. My name is Aurora Alexandra. Rory is a nickname for Aurora. I don't go by that name anymore. I consider it bad luck. So I go by Alexandra, but that's crazy-long, so I just have people call me Alex. Only my mom and dad call me Rory."

"Your parents are here, in S.H.I.E.L.D. Underground?"

"Captain, my mother is the S.H.I.E.L.D. director's second-in-command, Special Agent Maria Hill."

Steve blinked. "Oh. I've met Agent Hill, she's—"

"She's great, I know. Was that all you wanted to know, why I go by Alex?"

For some reason Steve couldn't quite pinpoint, he didn't want to just demand why the young woman had left him the folder with Peggy's information. So he cast about for some other topic to interrogate Rory—_Alex_, he thought. _I agreed to call her Alex_—to interrogate Alex about. Unfortunately, the first thing that popped out of his mouth was, "What happened to your leg?"

Alex noticeably stiffened. After a moment, she muttered, "Car accident."

"Your hand, too?"

She closed her eyes and nodded curtly. "Yeah."

The silence that built after her answer pushed past awkward to straight-up uncomfortable after only a few moments. Steve ran a hand through his short, sandy hair and asked, "Did you leave that folder on my bunk? The one with—"

"With Agent Carter's information in it? Yeah, I did."

"Why?"

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Your picture was out of date."

Steve's glare was positively frigid. "That's not funny." She didn't even glance away. Just kept looking back at him, her blue eyes empty of anything except a tightness that might've been impatience or pain or anything else. "Why did you give me that information?"

"Because Fury's whole thing about you moving on is stupid," she snapped. Steve blinked. "It's your right to forget or remember as you choose. I was ticked off that he made me parrot that S.H.I.E.L.D. crud about forgetting and whatever, since I don't believe a word of it, and neither should you. It's up to you to decide if you want to move on and forget your life before the ice or not. Fury doesn't believe that; well, forget him. I gave you the option of moving on...or holding on."

She turned away and began to limp down the corridor, her silver crutch clanking against the metal flooring. She was about to turn the corner out of sight when Steve called, "Wait!" Alex paused, but didn't turn back to him. She cocked her head as if listening. "Why do you care if I forget or not?"

Now she turned to him. Even across the dozen feet that separated them, he could see that her dark blue eyes weren't empty now. They smoldered with something he couldn't quite define.

"Why do I care? Because I know what it's like to wake up one day and everything's different. Everything you ever had has changed or it's gone, and you're not sure which is worse. Because sometimes it's easier to forget, but sometimes all you can do is remember. I know what that's like. Fury knew that. That's why he had me talk to you. He thought we'd connect. I told him he was an idiot." And she crutched away around the corner.

**.**

Alex expertly shuffled the pages of translations one-handed as she limped through the hall that night on her way to her father's office. He hadn't expected her to finish this quickly, she was pretty sure. Even though she had, it didn't mean much, anyway. She had the translations but she didn't know what they meant. Whether the Cube was trying to communicate with them or something. How it had picked up Swedish and German.

The German translations had been a pain in the butt because of the grammar. Alex spoke Swedish fluently—it had actually been her first language; she'd been born in Sweden while her mother was stationed there, and only several years in other countries during her youth had all but erased her accent—but she'd only spent a couple years in Germany as a kid and had never mastered the complex language.

She understood where the Cube might've picked up German; Steve Rogers had reported that Johann Schmidt had touched the thing with his bare hands...right before being disintegrated. Maybe it had picked up something from the Hydra operative. But Swedish? As far as Alex knew, and as far as her dad and Coulson had said, no one else but Schmidt had touched the Cube since it'd supposedly enjoyed a lengthy stay in Odin's treasure room or something. Everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. thought that theory just a bit ridiculous. And anyway, if it _had_ belonged to a Norse god, wouldn't it have been spouting Norwegian or Icelandic?

Lost in thought, Alex nearly tripped when she overheard her father's voice and realized she was right outside his door. Nick hardly ever told her anything; eavesdropping had become a necessity of life for her. So the twenty-three-year-old immediately ducked out of sight of the small window in the office door and listened to the conversation taking place inside.

"...I don't like this, Nick. Why's the council so insistent about phase 2?"

_That's Uncle Phil_, Alex realized when she heard Coulson's voice. _Dad's doing something he doesn't like? What council? We have a council_? She pressed the smoothness of the thin stack of paper to her chest. It was still slightly warm from the printer and smelled of fresh ink.

"Because of the hostile alien tech that attacked us in New Mexico," Nick Fury said. There was the creak of a chair. Alex imagined him slumping down in exasperated exhaustion behind his desk. "They think we need something on par with that kind of firepower."

"You don't agree."

"Of course I don't agree," Nick retorted. "But it's not my decision. And frankly, I've got plenty of other things to worry about other than whether we should or shouldn't be working toward an alternative to nuclear weapons."

Alex frowned. What could her father possibly be worrying about? As far as she knew, the Cube was his biggest priority, and while that wasn't going exactly _well_, per se, it wasn't going badly, either.

"Look, Nick, I know you're worried about Alex—"

"Coulson," the S.H.I.E.L.D. director snapped, "for the last time, her name's Aurora!" Something slammed hard against Nick's metal desk. Alex jumped. Her right temple began to throb. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed the pain to go away. "I don't get it. She wakes up, and she's Rory for the first couple months or so. Then suddenly she decides she's going to go by her middle name and she changes everything about herself. She won't even tell me why!"

"Maybe because she's not the same person she was when she fell into that coma, Boss. And maybe she just hasn't found someone she can talk to."

"She can talk to me! I'm her father."

There was a moment of silence before Coulson said, "Maybe that's why she feels she _can't_ talk to you."

"There's something wrong, Coulson," Nick muttered. "I don't know what it is, but something's wrong with her. Hill feels the same way. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And we've got phase 2 going on and we're _still_ technically on phase 1 with the Cube and..."

Alex had heard enough. As quietly as she could, she went back to the Reverse-Tower. The elevator took her back to her rooms. Dropping the stack of translations on her bed, she took a seat at the computer and turned it on. After it booted up, Alex closed her eyes and pressed the fingers of her good hand to her throbbing temple.

"Computer, access desktop folder kay-one-five-five-tee-aych-one-two. Password: _Ivory Tower_. Open new Microsoft Word document. Save under 'Journal dash four-six-one-zero.' Begin typing as follows."

She began to speak as the words came to her—recording her conversation with Steve earlier that day, what of the conversation she'd overheard between Coulson and her father only a few minutes ago. What she'd been doing with the translations. Then she rambled about the books she'd been rereading lately and the things she'd taken rain-checks for, like the movie and pizza with Coulson.

Finally she concluded with, "I need to do this more often, or Dr. Hopper won't be happy and he'll tell my dad. Not that he doesn't tell my dad practically everything, but...but when it's important," she added, vainly flexing the stiff fingers of her bad hand, "he knows how to keep a secret. Still, can't risk it this time. Seems like my dad's got enough to deal with right now. Computer, save all progress and encode document. Password..." Something caught in her throat. Alex swallowed it and gritted from between clenched teeth, "Password is '_Fair Rosalinda_.' Close document. Close folder. Shut down computer."

Alex leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. A cold tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away. Then she got up, got ready for bed, and flopped down to sleep. It took longer than she wanted, but sleep eventually came.

**.**

Loki studied the sleeping girl for several long minutes. Tears gleamed wetly beneath the dim glow of several small lights scattered around her room. Faint wrinkles furrowed the space between her thin, dark brows. He glanced to the stack of papers that held the final translations from the Cube, as well as the human girl's notes. Then he glanced at the silent and dark computer before turning once again to the girl.

This was the woman he'd seen in Nick Fury's thoughts. The happy child, dancing amongst the autumn leaves, had been the girl's younger self. Loki wondered idly how that laughing little girl had become this empty shell of a person. Midgardians were such a weak species. It probably hadn't taken very much to break this one's spirit, just as it likely hadn't taken much to break her body, leaving her this crippled wreck. But that wasn't Loki's purpose in watching her. He was merely killing time until he could be certain she slept deeply enough for him to activate her computer again.

When he _was_ certain, he went to the machine and turned it on. Once he'd gotten past her pitiful attempts at safeguarding and reached the desktop, he clicked on the folder K155TH12 and then clicked on the very first document, "Journal—10-12-09." When it asked for the password, he entered what he thought to be the proper one: _Fair Rosalinda_. How unimaginative, that the girl used the same password for all of the documents in this folder.

Emerald eyes flicked to the first line.

_I can't tell my father. I don't know what he'll do to Uncle Phil if I do. Dad already blames him for what happened to me before the coma. He'd kill him if he found this out, too. I'm only writing about it here because Dr. Hopper says I need to write out how I'm feeling or I have to start going to therapy twice a week instead of once every two weeks. I don't want that. I don't want to talk about what's going on here, in this place, with all these people that I should know, but don't._

_There's a new guy here who might understand. Steven. Steve Rogers. A man outside of time. He's been asleep for a long time, too. Almost seventy years. I've only been asleep for six. Asleep. Like the princess in the fairy tale. Like Sleeping Beauty. The_ original _Sleeping Beauty, not the Disney one. Most people don't know about her. Or Rapunzel in her tower. Like Fair Rosalinda. I don't want to be Fair Rosalinda. Anyone but her._

A soft cry from the bed grabbed Loki's attention before he could read anymore of the whining drivel this girl had written in her so-called journal. The girl thrashed and moaned on the bed. He quickly shut down the computer again, leaving the room dimmer without the glow from the screen. Drawing a cloak of shadows about him, he stood by and waited to see if the Midgardian would awaken. If she fell back into undisturbed sleep, Loki could return to reviewing her files in the hopes that _something_ in her journals would provide him with some clues about the girl that didn't involve an inane, childish desire to be a princess.

Because he stood half in shadow, cloaked with magic, he could see flickers of the dream flashing behind the mortal's eyes. A flash of crimson and the screech of abused metal. The retort of gunfire. Loki knew a little about firearms. A maiden's terrified screams echoed in his ears. And then...

Something dragged his consciousness into the nightmare. He struggled against it, twisting and hurling magic and power at it in an attempt to break its hold, but to no avail. Blood stung, sour and copper in his mouth. The stench of a woman's fear pervaded his nostrils. He caught a glimpse of the girl's face, pale as death, her eyes terrified and so darkly blue they were nearly black. A trembling hand reached out to him.

_"Black bear,"_ the girl whispered. She strained to reach him and for some reason he couldn't fathom, his fingers twitched toward her._"Black bear. Black wolf. Don't let me drown. Help me, please. Don't make me go to sleep again."_

A brilliant flash of electric blue exploded before his eyes, blinding him.

Then whatever link existed between them snapped, and Loki was flung from the dream hard enough his head spun. A spike of pain lanced his right temple. The sweat was icy on his forehead and the back of his neck. He stared at the girl.

She'd sat bolt-upright in bed, unable to see him beyond the shield of darkness and invisibility he'd pulled about himself. Tears mingled with the sweat on her cheeks. She swiped at them with the back of one hand. Then she threw back the twisted covers and, reaching for and slipping on the arm-braced crutch she used to walk, got to her feet and headed for her bedroom door.

Curious, still shaken by whatever had just happened, Loki followed behind her like a shadow.

**.**

Alex ignored Clint Barton and the scientists working on the Cube. They didn't look up as she strode by them, so obviously her father had said she could be there. Although it _was_ a little strange that no one noticed she was in her pajamas. Whatever. She had to get to the Cube and see if it had changed. After that dream, she just _had_ to.

When she got to the containment unit for the Cube, she paused in front of it. Nick and Coulson both had drilled it into her head countless times over the last few days, as had Dr. Selvig: she was allowed to _look_ at the Cube; she was _not_ allowed, under _any_ circumstances, to touch it.

She didn't have to.

Even as she watched the cracked and crackling surface of the mazzarine device, words appeared in Swedish on the surface. Alex's mouth dropped open and she stepped back from the Cube as the meaning of the words penetrated.

_You are the Sleeper. The black wolf watches you now._

TBC

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_**Author's Note:**_ _reviews are loves!_ =)


	5. Ultimatum

_**Author's Note:**_ _so the original author's note got deleted somehow, but...anyway. I hope you enjoy this chapter. I worked hard on it. I'm trying to update regularly, but life interferes. Often. Sigh. Anywho, enjoy!_

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_**Chapter Four  
>Ultimatum<strong>_

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_You are the Sleeper. The black wolf watches you now._

Alex sat stretched out atop the black knit coverlet on her bed, absently stretching her bad leg to keep it limber as she considered the strange words the Cube had shown her two nights before. The Swedish writing on the shimmering, shifting surface of the Cube had disappeared within seconds of the twenty-three-year-old reading it. Had the cameras picked it up? So far no one had said anything to her about it, or about her late-night visit to the containment cell in her pajamas. If nothing else, her dad should've come to inquire gently—he tried to keep all of his questions about her activities gentle, unless he just grew too exasperated—why she'd been up so late. He worried about how much sleep she got. He worried about everything.

Forcing the uncomfortable thought away—she didn't like making him worry, but she couldn't seem to stop doing things that upset him—Alex focused on the words. What did that mean, "You are the Sleeper?" Was the Cube talking to _her_, specifically? Or were its words just another spat of gibberish in a long string of mumbo-jumbo? Who was the black wolf? She _still_ hadn't figured that one out; if she could, she had the thought that she could probably figure out who the Sleeper was, too. After all, people didn't just sit around and _watch_ people. If it was someone in the underground compound, Alex was pretty sure she could single out the Sleeper by process of elimination.

She didn't want to consider the idea that she, herself, could be the Sleeper. Didn't want to consider it, because if she _was_, she needed to know why. The only thing Alex could think of was her coma…but how could the Cube know about that? And if it knew about that, what else did it know about? How long would her secrets remain secret, if this glowy blue box could read her past as easily as Coulson read the funny papers?

Which was the reason she hadn't said anything to her father. She didn't want his thoughts following the train of hers, because if her whacked-out theory was right—if she _was_ the Sleeper—she didn't want her dad finding out anything the Cube might tell him about her. It could—no doubt _would_—destroy him. She kept her journal entries passworded for a reason.

Thigh and hip muscles aching, her hip-joint throbbing sharply in time with her heart, Alex flopped back on her bed, the pillows cushioning her body. The mattress bounced, jostling her body; her bad leg jiggled limply like so much useless meat. She flexed the toes of her right foot. Ha, she could still do that. Wonderful. Now if only she could rotate her ankle, bend her knee, or walk without the stupid crutch. If only she could still dance…

_I will not have a pity party right now,_ Alex told herself sharply as tears stung her eyes. _There are plenty of people who have had worse breaks in life than I have. Like Steven. I will not whine about this._ She sat up and swung her good foot over the edge of the mattress, shoving with both hands to move her right leg alongside her left. She managed to get to her feet without the crutch, balancing awkwardly on one foot. Though it hurt like heck, she hopped on her left foot to her computer and booted it up. She wasn't going to mope about what she'd lost when she had information to analyze. When depressed, find something useful to do. Tony Stark had been the one to give her that little piece of advice.

_When life gives you lemons, kid, don't make lemonade. Lemonade has tons of sugar and will make you fat. Find someone you don't like and squeeze lemon juice in their eyes instead. Then use the lemons to build some kind of alternate-nuclear device that powers hybrid cars and bouncy castles and make a crap-ton of money. Then use the money to buy Girl Scout cookies. They'll make you fat, too, but it's for a good cause._

Alex smiled, thinking back to Tony's first-ever visit with her. It had been entirely against her father's wishes, but the super-genius had had a bone to pick with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director and didn't have any compunction about following him into a private hospital (which of course the multi-billionaire _owned_) and through mazes of bland, white-tiled hallways stinking of latex and disinfectant. Nick had been ready to throw Tony out of Alex's seventh-story hospital room window when he'd followed Nick inside the private room, but Tony had completely ignored the imposing S.H.I.E.L.D. director the moment he'd seen Alex. His entire demeanor had changed. The first thing Tony Stark had done after introducing himself to a painfully thin, still-recovering Alex was to make a disdainful comment about hospital food and order her a handmade pepperoni and extra-cheese gourmet monstrosity from Brooklyn's Pizza. For Alex, it had been love at first bite. Tony was _still_ her favorite person outside of her S.H.I.E.L.D. family. To this day, she associated the smells of gooey cheese and cooking pizza meat with Iron Man.

"Computer," Alex said, the mere sound of her voice in the emptiness of her room enough to wake up the voice-recognition program, "listen to me. Access Microsoft Word document 'Cube translations—Swedish.'" The document of Cube translations, formatted as a table-chart for easy reading, popped up on her screen. "Select Home Menu, option-Find. Type the following: quote-wolf-end-quote. Initiate Find-task." It took the search aspect of the Word program less than a minute to find the first instance of the word "wolf" in the translations.

_Wolf and bear come…Wolf run from winter blood. Wolf lost to thorns. Black wolf need sleeper._ Frowning, Alex ripped open a bag of Skittles and popped a handful into her mouth. Synthetic fruity sweetness exploded in her mouth when her teeth crunched down on the thin candy shells. Chewing contemplatively, she studied the translations. Were the "black bear" and the "black wolf" the same being? Apparently both were having issues with "thorns." And according to the first set of translations, the Sleeper needed the black bear and the black wolf needed the Sleeper.

"Computer, record the following," Alex commanded. "'Notation on Chart A—probability of black bear and black wolf being same individual? High. Question: Who is Red Death? Possibly Johann Schmidt, codename Red Skull? Possible. Probability? Unknown."

She scanned the first set of translations again when something nagged at her, a wisp of memory. The nagging sensation increased when her eyes focused on Block One-Two. Alex's gaze landed on a phrase that seemed to practically jump out at her. _Need son of the hearth._ What did that mean, "son of the hearth?" Popping another palm-full of Skittles, absently reminding herself that she'd need to brush her teeth after she was done chewing on multicolored cavities (as Tony called them), she sat back in her chair. The pain in her left hip—her so-called "good" hip—tried to distract her, but Alex had a nagging clue to follow now, and she wouldn't back off until it was over. Curiosity was what killed the cat, according to the old saying, but what most people forgot was that the proverb ended with "and satisfaction brought it back." She wasn't giving up this new trail of inquiry until she either passed out from exhaustion or came to the end of it.

"Computer, open web browser, find search engine." When a Google window appeared on her screen, Alex settled more comfortably in her computer chair and stretched out her twisted right leg, flexing her toes. Flexing the stiff fingers of her right hand, she added, "Type the following: quote-son of the hearth-end-quote."

Scads of hyperlinks appeared on the search page. Alex bit back a sigh. On second thought, maybe she'd convince her dad to assign a troll to do the tedious work on this project. Otherwise, this might take forever.

_Whatever,_ she thought. _I signed up for this, so I'm going to do it. Let's get started._ The best place to go first, of course, was Wikipedia. Basic info would give her a place to start looking.

She'd just clicked on the hyperlink that read _"Vesta—Wikipedia: the Online Encyclopedia"_ when someone knocked on her door.

"Come in," Alex tossed back over her shoulder. It was probably one of the trolls—Natasha's name for the rookie grunts who rotated out every six months—bringing Alex her lunch. She could eat later. She was busy now.

But it wasn't a troll. It was Coulson. He flashed her a tight smile and said, "Hey, kiddo. You busy?"

For some reason the words sent a frisson of unease shivering down Alexandra's spine. She eyed the man she'd called Uncle since toddlerhood and wondered if she ought to lie and say she was. There was a strained quality to Coulson's smile and a tightness around his eyes that gave her the idea that it wouldn't matter if she was busy or not. Someone wanted her for something, something that apparently couldn't wait. So she gave him a small smile, saved her data, and shut down her computer. By the time she'd turned around to get up, Coulson was already there with her crutch held out.

Ignoring the prickles of irritation heating the back of her neck and something that curdled in her stomach like shame, Alex slipped her hand into the arm-brace part of the crutch and let Coulson tighten the three metal bands that clamped around her wrist, forearm, and elbow. Without those clamps, she couldn't guarantee always being able to hold onto the crutch. The nerves and a few of the smaller bones in her right hand had been damaged in the crash that had also ruined her right leg. This way, she didn't have to focus on keeping her sometimes-spasmodic fingers curled around the crutch handle. She just had to lean her weight on the rubber grip, trusting to the clamps to keep the crutch from falling to the ground—and taking Alex with it.

"Thank you," Alex mumbled to Coulson. Being helped usually made her angry—she could do things for herself; slowly, but she _could_ do them!—but not this time. Coulson knew better than to try helping her with something as routine as getting crutched-up; he'd only do it if they were in a hurry or something important was going on. So why were they in a hurry? What important thing could possibly involve her? Unless S.H.I.E.L.D. Underground was under attack. But the claxons would've been shrieking and he would've told her…

Forcing back a flash of panic, trying to keep her heart steady so she didn't get a blood-pressure migraine, Alex followed Coulson out of the Reverse-Tower. When she passed through the shadows beneath one of the metal arches supporting the low concave ceiling, a shiver ran through her and for a split second, she thought she saw the white puff of her breath misting past her lips.

Then the air warmed again. Alex shook her head. Nerves. It was just nerves. She was thinking too much about "long sleep in winter" and "winter blood." Whatever.

Just nerves.

**.**

Loki gritted his teeth as he followed the Midgardian girl and her…Loki could not help but think of him as her protector. The girl had been in the midst of following of line of inquiry that particularly intrigued the pseudo- Æsir. Son of the hearth. In olden times, that title had been applied to many immortals. One of the Olympians known as Vesta, for example. And Frigg.

The Frost Giant's lips parted as a short, sharp pain pierced his chest, and for a moment he stood as frozen as if the Cask of Ancient Winters had blasted him into enchanted wintry stasis. In his mind's eye he saw the tumble of lustrous hair like dark honey and eyes the color of well-aged brandy, full lips that had never hesitated to kiss away the pain of childhood hurts. Slender, elegant hands as deft with comb and wet child-locks as with spindle and woolen thread or slender Asgardian sword. _You are our son, Loki, and we your family._ Frigg. His moth-

Loki's teeth came together with a cutting swiftness that flooded his mouth with the coppery sting of blood from his bitten cheek. No. He had no time for such soft sentiments now. He had a mission—to find a way to return to Asgard as proud prince, Thor's equal, son of Odin. Until then, he couldn't afford to think on Frigg's words to him while the All-Father lay in the Odinsleep.

And the girl was getting away.

He followed her because whatever was happening seemed out of the ordinary, and anything out of the ordinary interested him. So long as the mortal girl was responsible for cataloguing the various snippets of prophecy or what-have-you that the tesseract was spitting out, Loki would keep a sharp eye on her welfare. She was a useful tool, dedicated to unearthing the secrets of the tesseract's garbled messages. If something attempted to interfere with her fulfilling that goal, the immortal prince would step in and see to it that she was left unmolested. He wanted the messages deciphered, and it seemed as if S.H.I.E.L.D. was leaving the girl to the task. Well enough. If S.H.I.E.L.D. brought in someone new at this point, it would lay waste to all the effort Loki had spent in learning about the girl and her investigative methods.

Mild irritation scrabbled beneath Loki's skin like insect legs as he was forced to match his own long stride to the crippled girl's stilted, incredibly awkward limping. She moved so gods-cursed _slowly!_ Her gait was a ponderous affair: she would balance on her left foot, swipe the crutch perhaps half a pace in front of her, lean heavily on the crutch, swing her shortened right leg around and forward to lurch toward the metal device, and then take an ungainly, hopping sort of step with her left foot before repeating the entire process. Pain flashed across the girl's face with every step. Loki thought she must've been trying to hide it—or the girl's protector was singularly unobservant, even for a Midgardian—but _he_ noted the telltale signs: the way the lines around her eyes deepened both when she put weight on her left leg and swung out with her right; how the air seemed to wheeze out of her lungs with every lurch forward, yet smoothed out whenever she was given a moment to rest against the smooth metal wall; the fierce grip she held on the crutch handle, so that her fingertips flooded purple with blood but her joints blazed white as bare knucklebones beneath the sun.

Loki wondered suddenly why the mortal simply didn't use a wheeled chair to get around. Surely it would be less taxing—and less humiliating—to rely on the support of such a contraption instead of forcing such pain on herself. Was it pride, then? His lips twisted into a sneer. Only a Midgardian would allow pride to make themselves look even more foolish than they typically did. His ingrained curiosity had him narrowing his eyes in speculation. Why _did_ she use a crutch? If only he could read the energy signature of the girl's thoughts…

But in that, he knew himself to be forever thwarted. Just as many individuals possessed a degree of tolerance or even immunity to certain drugs or diseases, so too did some possess a tolerance for _seiðr_ and its uses. This girl had only one such gift—her thoughts were quite a muddle to attempt to read. Using _seiðr_ to thought-sense wasn't difficult, but every time Loki tried to catch a glimpse of the girl's thoughts they came through smeared, like a child's drawing left out to melt away in the rain. The same was true of the mortal currently escorting the girl down the corridor. Both of them possessed some sort of block.

Finding out what caused such a gift, and whether it had anything to do with blood or training or something else altogether, was another of Loki's goals while spying on the human girl. So far, he'd had no luck identifying anything of the sort. The little _skadedjur_ hardly ever left her rooms unless summoned. The fair-skinned mortal soldier was no kin of hers, and her parents possessed no mental block.

The puzzle of it was maddening.

Finally, after what felt like several small eternities, the mortal soldier brought the girl to a door. Passing a small white square the thickness of the sole of a lady's slipper across a red circle of light, which flashed green, the human male gestured for the girl to precede him once the door slid open. Loki slipped into the room behind the girl, close enough to catch a whiff of whatever floral scent she bathed with. On the edge of that he caught the aroma of sweet fruit from her breath. She'd been eating those odd, multicolored little beans again.

The girl froze when she saw the dark-skinned human warrior—her father—seated behind a massive metal desk, empty of anything but a computer and two manila folders stuffed with papers. The girl's name was written in place of labels on the folders' protruding tabs. _Aurora Alexandra Fury_. So that was the source of her desire to be known as "Alex." Loki saw, somewhat to his surprise, that "Alex" had gone nearly gray with shock and…was that fear? She started to step back and nearly lost her balance. Only her "protector" catching her weight kept her from tumbling to the floor.

"Have a seat, Aurora," the girl's father said gently. Loki raised an eyebrow. His tone certainly didn't match the girl's reaction; yet the mortal didn't seem surprised by that reaction, either. Intrigued, Loki leaned back against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. He rather thought it would be interesting to watch this little drama play out. For one thing, it might negatively affect his plans.

With some difficulty, "Alex" sat down. Though her voice shook—the pseudo-Æsir could not imagine why—she managed to say, "I'm over eighteen. You don't have the right to look at those."

"As your father, you're right—I don't. As your employer, considering the agency you currently work for, I do." The human warrior leaned forward, folding his hands atop his desk. He seemed to be trying to appear harmless, yet his daughter shrank back from him. "You have to pass a psych-eval to remain in SHIELD Underground, Aurora. Remember? Living underground can have unhealthy side-effects on the human psyche." When the girl looked as if she might protest, he held up a hand. "I haven't looked at them…yet. But I'm giving you a warning. Do you know when the last time you left your room was?"

"Couple days ago," she said sharply. "Why?"

"And before that?"

After a moment's silence, she murmured, "Six days."

"Before that?"

A longer stretch of silence, this one tinged with embarrassment and an emotional undercurrent Loki recognized as…panic. "Five weeks…I think. I don't…I don't remember," the girl confessed softly, bowing her head. Loki raised an eyebrow. The girl must have been something of a recluse if she she'd only left her room three times in nearly two months.

Nick drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly. He fixed his single eye on his daughter, taking in the hunched shoulders and ashen face hiding behind the curtain of curly dark hair. Still gentle, he asked, "Aurora…when was the last time you went outside?" The girl began to shake. The swirls of panic in the room grew thicker. Loki's skin twitched as if insects were crawling up and down his spine. Alex said nothing. She merely hunched down further. The mutilated fingers of her right hand flexed and spasmed. "I can tell you," her father said softly. "You haven't left S.H.I.E.L.D. Underground, haven't seen sunshine or breathed fresh air, in over sixteen months. Rory, you can't keep doing this."

"I'm fine," the girl protested. Ignoring her feeble words, Loki narrowed his eyes and studied her from an altered perspective. He'd assumed the girl was so wan and thin, so unhealthy, because of her twisted leg and whatever gave her the frequent crippling headaches that laid her out in bed for hours at a time. Perhaps he'd been wrong. Was it her seclusion that made the Midgardian so sickly? "Dad, I-"

"You've got two choices," Nick Fury said, cutting her off. A spark of defiance flashed in the girl's blue eyes, only to be snuffed out quickly under her father's implacable expression. Loki barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Mortals were so weak-willed. The human soldier added, "You're not gonna like either one of them, but that's the way things are, and there's nothing you can do about it. You can either start going outside for an hour or two every day or so…or you're leaving SHIELD and we're sending you back to Thornwood Home."

The girl's face drained completely of color. Loki couldn't suppress a momentary flare of alarm. What, by Surtur's blade, was Thornwood Home? If it could make the girl blanch like that, what could it be? He would have to look into that. Unknown variables could be problematic. And if it somehow interfered with the girl's ability to translate the Cube messages…

Irritation and disgust knotted in his belly, flooding his mouth with a sour taste like bile. Because of the mortal girl's frailty, her emotional weakness, the progress he'd made regarding the Cube's attempts to communicate was now in jeopardy. Wretched Midgardians. And of course, as usual, Loki would have to remedy the problem with his wit and cunning and (no doubt) his famed silver tongue. Because the moment Nick Fury had told the girl she must go outside - where she was clearly loath to be - a plan had unfurled in an eye-blink in the disguised Frost Giant's mind. If the girl needed to be persuaded to set foot out of doors, and the excursion needed to be made pleasurable to her, he would make it happen.

"No!" Alex was struggling to her feet, her fingers - stiff from both damage and panic - scrabbling at the slick surface of her father's desk for some purchase, but her crippled leg refused to hold her weight. She would have fallen, but the pale mortal warrior was there, catching her before she could hit the ground. Feebly she beat at his chest with her fists, shaking her head vehemently as she continued to keen, "No! Nononononono!"

"Aurora," Nick said sharply, but the commanding whiplash of his tone didn't cut through her panic. "Aurora! It's all right! It's okay!"

"Alex," the other warrior murmured gently, cradling her, rocking her, "it's okay. I'm going to be with you. We're not just gonna shove you out there. It'll be okay. We'll start off small, okay? Just half an hour. You can do it. It'll be okay."

The girl was gasping now through her tears. Pain twisted her features. "I can't," she whispered. "I can't, I can't…"

Utterly _fed up_, Loki stepped forward. Still shrouded in shadows, unseen to the human eye, he swooped down beside the trembling Midgardian and laid a chill hand on the back of her neck. He leaned into her and blew a whisper of chill into her ear, a cool comfort that froze the edges of panic into brittle ice. A flick of power shattered it, smoothing out the shards of fear until the girl was breathing fairly normally.

Then, exerting the subtlest push on her mind, Loki breathed, "Thirty minutes is not so hard. Not really."

Drawing a shuddering breath, Alex curled the fingers of her left hand in the pale warrior's and whispered, "Okay. Okay. Thirty minutes…thirty minutes isn't so hard. Not really. I can…I can do that. I can try."

Loki smiled. Tomorrow he would be waiting for her. And perhaps, just perhaps, he could use that time to nudge her in the proper direction regarding the Cube.

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_**Author's Note:**_ _reviews are love!_


	6. Down from the Tower

_**Author's Note:**_ _so here's the next chapter. I hope you like it! Things pick up in the romance department! Excitement…_

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_**Chapter Five  
>Down from the Tower<strong>_

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Loki watched from his ensorcelled vantage point _between_ as the Midgardian girl struggled to don her boots with a hand that shook. Her crippled hand spasmed periodically, and the one hand she had any use of trembled so badly it might as well have been crippled too. The pseudo-Asgardian's mouth twisted into a sneer. The girl was pathetic; a simple outing that was scheduled to last no more than a mere half hour reduced her to this? There was simply no reason for it. Bor's ghost, she would be escorted by an armed guard! She lived the life of a virtual prisoner—an outing should have sent her into raptures. Instead, the ignorant chit treated the whole thing like some terrible ordeal. She was even dressed all in black, as if for a funeral. It was ridiculous.

Curiosity over the girl's bizarre behavior had prompted him to scan her journal entries the previous night, looking for some clue as to why she avoided the outside world. He'd found nothing pertinent. Her ramblings were littered with references to things like "Sleeping Beauty" and "Red Riding Hood," match-girls and nightingales, whatever that meant, as well as "Fair Rosalinda." Though Loki had found explanations as to the identity of Sleeping Beauty and Red Riding Hood when he'd searched through what the mortals referred to as "the internet," he'd yet to come across an explanation of "Fair Rosalinda." There were human children's stories called "Princess Rosette" and "Rosanella," but nothing about a girl named _Rosalinda_. He despised ignorance, in himself as well as others. He wouldn't stand for this. If he couldn't discover the identity of this "Rosalinda," he would have to ferret it out of the girl somehow.

Which, as he intended to intercept her once she'd arrived at whatever inane destination her father decided suited his purpose, wouldn't be difficult in the least.

A straining, unmelodious voice suddenly issued from the small rectangular object the girl clutched in her good hand. The object was slim, a pearlescent blue not unlike the color given off by the tesseract. A white circle stood out in the center of the contraption, painted with tiny silver symbols. A black cord led from the rectangle to a pair of black-and-blue circular things that the girl fitted on and behind her ears. Due to his superior hearing, Loki could still hear what must've passed for music issuing from the things.

_"Her heart beats slowly and afraid.  
>Phantom faces at her side,<br>And her anguish she cannot hide:  
>The beauty and the frailty of life.<em>

_"In desperation she strikes a match;  
>Her fingers burn with fire and ash—<br>Escape a hard, imperfect world.  
>Her eyes light up—the matchstick girl."<em>

The voice could hardly carry a tune—it sounded like a Midgardian male; he doubted a Midgardian _female_ could sound so discordant—but the words disturbed the Asgardian prince, though for the life of him, he couldn't have said why. And here was yet another reference to match-girls. He'd found the most well-known story of the human child forced by poverty to sell matchsticks in the cold, and how she'd frozen to death in the depths of winter by foolishly lighting the matches both for warmth and to see beautiful "visions" of comfort and happiness in their flames (instead of having the sense to take shelter in a Midgardian church or whatnot from the cold). Loki had yet to be able to find a connection between the girl known as Alex and such a story.

Ah, the girl's protector had arrived to collect her. The moment the fair-skinned human warrior arrived, Loki's quarry paled until she was whiter than milk after second skimmings. Her throat worked convulsively and her grip on the handle of the crude metal crutch spasmed. Moisture gathered in those dark blue eyes. The girl didn't even bother trying to blink away the most obvious sign of her panic and weakness.

Loki gritted his teeth and slid behind her, slick as oil, silent as a shadow. He breathed chill power into her ear, through her skull, down her spine. Whispered, "It must be time. As long as someone's near, it won't be so bad."

**.**

Alex drew a deep breath and forced down the panic trying to climb into her throat. Chilly prickles whispered up and down her back, but she ignored them, huddling inside her black sweater. Glancing into Coulson's warm, encouraging eyes, she took another steadying breath and murmured, "It must be time." Coulson nodded. He was careful, she noticed, to keep his expression cheery and confident. Trying to keep her calm. Alex sighed. "As long as someone's nearby…I guess it won't be so bad."

Clutching her iPod in her good hand, the music pulsing through her ears in time with her heartbeat, she followed Coulson out of her room.

The trip to the low-key exit to the world aboveground was uneventful until Alex and Coulson reached the garage that led to the outside world. The van her father had provided had some bulky piece of machinery on the back. Alex balked when she realized the machine was a wheelchair-lift complete with an adult-sized wheelchair. Her hand spasmed around the handle of her crutch. Sick shame and hurt surged up like bile in her throat. She whipped her head around to glare at Coulson, who had the grace to look sheepish. The SHIELD "trolls" were careful to look anywhere but at the director's daughter.

"No," she snapped. Coulson sighed. "_No_. You double-crossing jerk, I won't go outside and let people stare at me while I'm stuck in a stupid wheelchair. I won't do it! Tell my dad I said, 'Forget it!' I'm going back to my room. Screw all of you."

She'd begun the laborious process of turning around when Coulson said softly from behind her, "If you don't do this, Alex, he's going to send you to Thornwood Home."

A sudden lump of panicked terror rose up in her throat. Thornwood Center, the hospice center where she'd spent nearly seven years in a coma before waking up and being moved to the hospital owned by Tony Stark. Thornwood Home, the psychiatric hospital attached to the hospice center, where she'd spent two months in as her father had prayed for her mental, emotional, and physical recovery from seven years of cursed sleep.

Thornwood Home, nightmare hall, gilded cage of sleep. She couldn't go back to Thornwood. Ever. Not _ever_.

Drawing a choked breath, Alex turned back to the man she loved like an uncle and lowered her eyes to the concrete under her shoes. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. She swallowed a sob. A wheelchair…

She'd been a dancer once, beautiful as a dream, graceful as gossamer thought, powerful as a white swan on water. Now she had to go out and be stared at and pitied, a crippled wreck in a metal chair that might as well have been a prison.

Such a beautiful girl, people had whispered about her in the first couple months after she'd woken from the coma; she'd allowed her father to take her outside then. Allowed him to call her Rory. Had tried to pretend that she was Sleeping Beauty, woken up by a chaste kiss instead of… And people had seen her, cast her pitying looks while she huddled under thick blankets and sweaters, looking half-starved, struggling against the sobs building in her chest with every second and minute bleeding away from her, and they'd whispered how beautiful and tragic she was, how it was such a shame that she was stuck in a wheelchair.

Her eyes were reproachful and defeated when she turned them on Coulson. He stepped back. They didn't look at each other as he helped her into the van. She didn't speak a word. She only turned up her music—"Turn Loose the Mermaids" by Nightwish—and stared out the window, trying to ignore the sick sense of terror growing in the pit of her stomach as they rolled past the guard station and out onto the New York City street.

**.**

Loki tucked in the final wisps and twists of _seiðr_, perfecting the details of the illusion. It was a complex masking spell; to the human girl, he would retain his own handsome visage, the better to charm her, but he had morphed his dress in truth to modern Midgardian clothing—undergarments, white button-down business shirt of the highest quality, gray trousers, a gray suit-coat that fell some ways past his waist, a long emerald and ivory cashmere scarf, and standard dress shoes and socks. To everyone else, he would look like some_one_ else, a nameless and faceless mortal of no consequence.

The Asgardian prince settled on a wooden bench in a brilliant, warm patch of sunlight on the edges of Stork Park; odd name for such a place, as Loki could detect no storks or large birds of that type. A towering willow behind him, leafing anew with the onset of spring and trailing vines flush with life, provided some shade upon the grass just to his left; the mortal maid would attempt to escape the sun, having seen it so rarely until now and being sensitive to the light. He'd seen her wince at the clouded brightness as the mortal vehicle had departed the SHIELD premises. A few brief flicks of power served to act as a repellant for anyone wishing a seat while also enticing the Midgardian girl to take the shadowy spot beside the bench. She was a skittish, timid little creature; if too many occupants crowded the space, she would shy away from it instinctively.

He would have preferred it had she been forced to sit beside him. His charms and cunning would've worked so much better if he'd been able to impose the warmth and nearness of his body—and his _seiðr_—on the girl. But her idiotic father had insisted she use the wheeled chair contrivance she seemed to shun so much. The unfathomable brat had been pathetically near tears upon discovering what the dark-skinned Midgardian had arranged.

Leaning back against the bench, he propped open a book and assumed an attitude of reading. The title was _Iconic Fairy Tales and Analysis_; a rather derivative instructive text Loki had purloined from a mortal book vendor to use as a conversation-started with the girl. He would make a show of studying the silly children's stories—and their more gruesome ancestors—and see if the human chit took the bait. Perhaps he would even discover the identity of "Fair Rosalinda" during the conversation. If he could entice the bratling to remain past the half-hour mark, who knew what interesting bits of information Loki could ferret out of her?

A sleek, black shape pulled into the parking lot just beyond the park gates. Loki watched, half-amused and half-derisive, as a pair of SHIELD agents stepped out of the van and scanned what they could see of Stork Park—no doubt in their attempts to protect the girl, their leader's oh-so-precious daughter. The pale warrior that most often took the role of the girl's protector emerged from the vehicle as well. Retrieving the wheeled chair, he brought it to the van door, then carefully helped the girl climb into it. The Midgardian wench looked as if she might shatter at the first breath of wind, so brittle did she seem. Without a glance at either of the two security men, the warrior wheeled the girl through the park gates and onto the grass. Loki tensed, holding his breath. Would his spells work? Of course they _worked_, but would they work well enough to entrap his quarry?

The girl known as Alex hunched beneath a heavy black sweater, a black shawl draped across her shoulders. The lumpy cloth made her look as if she had a dowager's hump. A thick blanket covered her legs. Wisps and straggles of curly dark hair fell across the girl's face. Incongruous blue eyes squinted against the gloomy sun. Heavy spring clouds masked most of the sky, yet the girl peered around her as if it were high noon on midsummer. She spoke to the warrior pushing her chair. The warrior spoke back, the girl said something else. Her guardian shook his head. The girl made a dismissive gesture with one hand, and the warrior's shoulders slumped, as defeated as his charge had appeared in the SHIELD garage.

Then he wheeled her over to Loki's bench.

**.**

Alex closed her eyes against the cruel glare of the sun. Her headphones blocked out the twittering of birds and the dull roar of too many people close by. She swallowed back the panic razoring in her throat. Too many people, and the entire space was too big and open, and she had to be out here for thirty minutes. Were people looking at her? Were they _looking_? She bit her lip until she tasted the hot salted copper of blood.

"You're going to be okay, Alex," Coulson murmured as he pushed her wheelchair over to the bench she'd spotted. It was a nice little spot, with a bit of shade to give her some blessed relief from the sickening, glaring sun. The only downside was the man with his nose buried in a book seated on the bench…but he seemed completely absorbed in whatever he was reading, so he probably wouldn't bother her. They could ignore each other and she could drown out the world with her music until it was time to escape back to the Reverse-Tower. Coulson's voice barely penetrated the fog of her iPod as Avril Lavigne's "Innocent" blasted her eardrums. The song didn't apply to the situation, really—she _would_ change several things about her life if she could—but it had such a soothing melody that Alex found comfort in it. And Avril Lavigne had the advantage of being _loud_.

Coulson set her in place under the shadow of the willow tree, switched on the brake for her wheelchair, and took up his guarding stance the requested thirty feet away. She hadn't wanted Coulson nearby; his betrayal still burned in her chest, that he would _let_ her dad force her into this…monstrosity. Her fingers spasmed around the arms of the wheelchair; the metal was icy and unforgiving. Alex squeezed her eyes shut and focused on the new song that sang through her ear-phones and in her head, so she could ignore the weight of so many people's regard.

"_In the meadow,  
>Under the willow—<br>A bed of grass,  
>A soft green pillow…<em>"

The words were from a book, but the melody was an original arrangement by a girl on Youtube, Jule Marie. The song was "Rue's Lullaby" from _The Hunger Games_, and Alex loved the soothing voice and languid, melancholy piano accompaniment that came with it. She often listened to it when she couldn't sleep. Her thumb brushed the volume control on her iPod, turning up the song a bit more. She wondered absently if she was traipsing down the path to early deafness with the volume, but couldn't find it in herself to truly care.

Suddenly a rich, low baritone assaulted her ears, jerking her attention from the little bubble of solitude she'd erected around herself. Her eyes flew wide and she turned to see the man seated on the bench, the man who _had_ been reading, singing along with the words of the song on her iPod.

"_Lay down your head,  
>And close your sleepy eyes,<br>And when again they open,  
>The sun will rise…<em>"

For a minute Alexandra was merely stunned by the man beside her. She hadn't given him more than a brief glance, and his nose had been buried intently in his book, so she hadn't truly taken note of what he looked like. She did now.

He was pale, but not sickly—fair-skinned as a Viking, but with hair as dark as ebony. Snow White as Prince Charming. His features were fine and even, the nose straight, the forehead broad and adorned by slender dark brows, the lips sculpted and curved slightly into a ghost of a smile. He was tall, slender, but she gathered the impression of well-toned muscle and strength. His clothes looked expensive. But it was his eyes that drew her. Eyes as green as sunlight through emeralds, framed by fringes of dark lashes, and they were watching her.

Alex's mouth opened and closed soundlessly for a moment. Then her good hand stole up to the wires around her neck and she slowly tugged the ear-phones off. She hit the stop-button on the iPod. The music shut off abruptly.

"Hello," the man said softly, his ghost of a smile fledging into a true one. His speaking voice was just as rich as his singing voice, like dark chocolate. Alex detected the faintest accent, but she couldn't place it.

She cleared her throat and whispered, "Hello."

"I couldn't help overhearing your music," he said. "'Rue's Lullaby' has a particular appeal. That's Jule Marie's arrangement, is it not?"

Alex wondered suddenly if Coulson was getting ready to run over here and beat this stranger off with a stick, like the overbearing older brother/uncle he often resembled. She hoped not; people might stare. Then she realized the man's comment required a response. "Uh…yeah. Yeah, it is."

The man nodded. His green eyes kindled with something warm. "You have taste in music," he murmured. For some reason Alex couldn't fathom, heat flooded her face. The man held out his left hand. "My name is Frost; Lukas Frost. And you are?"

When she offered him her good hand, his long fingers curled around it, and velvet-calloused fingertips brushed her skin as they shook hands. Alex swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. His hand was warm, dispelling some of the chill from the nippy spring air. She finally managed to murmur, "Alex…Alexandra."

"It is my pleasure to meet you, Alexandra."

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_**Author's Note:**_ _So__ they've MET! Reviews? What do you think will happy next?_

**Copyright information:** the song Alex is listening to in the first scene is "Matchstick Girl" by The Crüxshadows, which is on their new album, _Dark Against My Halo_. I've been a fan of theirs for…gosh, ten years now. =) The other song is "Rue's Lullaby" from _The Hunger Games,_ as arranged by Jule Marie Music (it can be found on Youtube; it's beautiful. I prefer it to Sting's version). "Turn Loose the Mermaids" is from Nightwish's album, _Imaginaerium._


	7. Enchanted

_**Author's Note:**__ I know, I know. It took me forever to update. I'm soooo sorry! A lot of stuff came up (including a 2nd Loki fic). So here's the newest chapter of "Curse," and I hope you like this first conversation/meeting between Loki and Alex. Hugs for everyone!_

_Concerning the Chapter Title: "Enchanted" is a song by Taylor Swift that really describes how Alex is feeling off and on throughout this chapter. You guys should go give it a listen on Youtube. It's also on the soundtrack for the film_ The Vow.

_._

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**Chapter Six**

**Enchanted**

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Alex stared at the man on the bench beside her wheelchair, trying to think of something to say. It was a pleasure to meet her? She couldn't remember the last time she'd heard a guy say that to someone. In a movie, maybe? Her brain raced, trying to think of something, _anything_, to say…but she came up blank. She could only stare at the handsome stranger on the bench.

His green eyes kindled with amusement. "May I have my hand back?"

Startled, Alex abruptly released him. "Oh! I'm sorry. I'm…I'm so sorry. I'm not used to talking to…meeting…I'm sorry." She was stuttering; fantastic. Was he staring at her? Did he think she was a freak? Of course he did. The brief peace from panic she'd felt when he'd initiated the conversation faded, leaving her with stinging eyes. Tension ripped across her shoulders. She ducked her head. "I'm sorry."

"It's quite all right," the man—Lukas, Alex remembered—said gently. "No doubt I took you by surprise. My apologies. But I am quite fond of music. I couldn't resist singing along." When she risked a glance at him, she saw he was smiling. The tightness in her shoulders eased a little. "Would you prefer I change the subject?"

"Um…that would help," she confessed, feeling like an idiot. "I, uh…what are you reading?" And why didn't she just tell him to go away? But he'd been there first. He might get angry. If he got angry, Coulson would come over to see what was happening. There would be a scene. People would look at her. Something might happen. And if it was really bad, her father might insist on her talking to Dr. Hopper, and maybe want to speak to the psychiatrist himself. The thought terrified her. Dr. Hopper might tell him about…

Lukas held up the pristine paperback he'd been perusing before her music had interrupted him. A simple illustration of a girl on a staircase, a shoe on the steps above her, decorated the cover. The title helped relax her a little—Iconic Fairy Tales and Analysis. Something she knew about. She knew fairytales better than almost anyone (except those rare individuals who might've studied fairytale literature and folklore at college). Her companion must have seen her relax, because his smile became more apparent. Holding the book out to her, he asked, "A favorite of yours, perhaps?"

Alex shook her head, feeling oddly shy; oddly, because while she had to fight the urge to duck her head, she didn't feel that choking panic clawing deep in the pit of her stomach. "I've never read it, but I've studied fairytales for years. They're so…" She gestured with her bad hand without realizing it. "There's just so much scope for…interpretation. Nuance. Adaptation. I mean, it's so cool how you can take ten people, one fairytale, and come up with twenty different variations of the story. Are you a fairytale scholar?"

"I confess, no," Lukas said with a wistful little smile. Alex saw that the pale face was accentuated by a dimple at the right corner of his mouth. She didn't think she'd ever seen a grown man with a dimple before. Of course, she hadn't really noticed that sort of thing before her accident and the event that had put her in a coma. Afterward…when had she been around someone who might've had a dimple? She never really looked at the SHIELD trolls, since they all seemed so uncomfortable around her (and who could blame them? She was a bit of an enigma; the crippled civilian daughter of their divorced director and his second-in-command, the recluse everyone probably thought was out of her mind…). Alex jerked herself out of that bitter train of thought as Lukas added, "It is a new interest of mine, but I fear I lack the necessary education to make much headway."

Here was something she knew how to do, at least—discuss. English had been her best academic subject in high school. Forcing herself to ignore the rest of the Park, and all the strangers prowling there, she smiled at Lukas. "Well, what do you mean? Is this a goal-oriented independent study or are you in a college course or what?"

"Independent study," Lukas replied, shifting toward her. A spike of fear shot through her; he was too close. Far too close. Close enough that she caught a whiff of his cologne, the mingled scents of ice, wood smoke, and pine. Alex tried to swallow, but it caught in her throat. Lukas shifted again. She jolted and hunched in her wheelchair. Green eyes narrowed as the slender, dark brows furrowed. "Are you all right?"

"I…yeah," Alex mumbled. "Sorry, I'm…I just…"

Those dark brows rose. "You're not used to being outside, are you? In company?" Stricken, her eyes shot to his face. How did he _know_…? What was he going to do now? But he simply shifted his weight to put a little space between them. "My apologies. I didn't wish to alarm you. Do you wish me to go?"

Why was he being so nice to her? Why didn't he seem offended? Surprised at the softly-spoken courtesy, Alex shook her head numbly. "No, it's fine. You're right, I'm just not used to this. I don't get out much."

"Work?" Lukas asked lightly. Alex shrugged. "Well, it is my good fortune that you had time to come out today. What do you do? For work," he added when she looked at him blankly.

"Oh!" She smiled. "I work for my dad. Right now he's got me translating stuff from Swedish and German into English. He never learned the languages well enough to do it himself without putting more work into it than he felt like."

"A busy man, your father?"

She nodded. "Head of his own…company."

"What are you translating?" For the first time, those pale lips curved into a little-boy grin. Waggling his eyebrows, Lukas leaned in just a little and asked in a confidential whisper, "Top-secret state documents, perhaps? The blueprints to a Latverian spy satellite?" Affecting a soulful look, he added, "Perhaps a romantic love letter or two?"

Alexandra laughed—which startled her, because she hadn't really laughed in…weeks, at least. Brushing a frizz of dark hair from her face, she said, "It's…poetry, I guess you could say. I'm not quite sure if that's what it's supposed to be, but…whatever. It's something to do. My background in folklore helps, actually."

"Regarding my independent study of American folklore and fairytales, maybe you have some suggestions about where I might start? I'm not from this country and much of the folklore lies outside my knowledge."

"Oh, where are you from?"

"I was born near a place called Tronsberg," he replied. "This is my first time in America."

"Tronsberg, Norway? Really?" Sudden delight fizzed in her stomach. Grinning, she said, "_I_ was born there. My mom was on assignment there when she went into early labor. That's so funny."

He smiled. "That _is_ quite a coincidence, to be sure. I can't detect an accent in your speech."

Alex shrugged and waved dismissively. "We didn't stay long. I've been all over the place with my mom. Born in Norway, lived in Sweden, Germany, Monaco, Wales. We finally moved here when I was thirteen. All the bouncing around and then living here for so long wiped out my accent. So…you don't have a grounding in the typical fairytale canon. Well, maybe you could look some stuff up by theme?"

One slender brow quirked. "Theme?"

"Yeah. Like, there's the animal bridegroom, like in 'The Singing, Springing Lark' or 'The Frog Prince.' Or the princess in peril situation. 'Snow White,' 'Sleeping Beauty,' 'Cinderella,' stories like that. Dangerous animal foes, like in 'Little Red Riding Hood.' Testing the bride will give you an interesting collection, too. Murdered maidens or murderous lovers, all that stuff. Themes."

Lukas leaned back against the bench, crossing his long legs. The dim sun through the clouds made his polished, black Oxfords gleam. He tapped one long finger against his chin in thought. His brows knotted together. "There was a story I heard mentioned…ah, what was it? I tried to look it up but couldn't find anything. What _was_ it? I detest leaving puzzles unsolved, you see, and so now that I want to know what it is and can't find anything about it, I'm driven to learn all I can about it."

"I can totally get behind that," Alex said with a laugh. "I'm the same way. My friend Tony says it's a mark of genius. Of course he _would_; he's just like that, too. And he _is_ a genius. Do you remember anything about the title?" She added.

Frowning, he nodded. "Something about…beauty, I think. 'Fair.' Or 'Fairest.'"

"'Fairer Than a Fairy?'"

Lukas shook his head. The small movement brought back the ice-smoke-pine scent. It danced in Alexandra's nostrils, whispered across her face. It was a nice smell. Oddly comforting. But then, everything about Lukas was comforting. Which should've been strange, but he was just so…unassuming and casual with the way he draped himself across the bench. Like he had every right to be there, but he'd be willing to get to his feet and offer the seat to someone who needed it in a nanosecond.

"Whatever theme this story falls under, though…I think I'll pursue it. What _was_ it, though? Ah, yes! 'Fair Rosalinda.'"

Alex felt the blood drain from her face. Her lips and the ends of her fingers tingled unpleasantly from sudden loss of blood. Her heart kicked into a gallop in her throat that threatened to choke her. Somehow she managed to swallow hard enough to get her heart back where it belonged. Was she trembling? It felt like it. Please don't let her be trembling. Please don't let her throw up all over this handsome, nice, interesting man who'd been kind enough to talk to her.

As if the thought had jumpstarted her stomach, she felt her diaphragm give a hiccup. Bile burned the back of her throat. For a hellish, split-second eternity, all she could see was the blank darkness behind her eyes while she'd been in the coma. The darkness of accursed sleep. The pain of spindle-like needles stabbing deep into her flesh. Hands touching because she couldn't move, couldn't eat, couldn't even turn over, couldn't move at all. Helpless in the dark of Aurora's soul-killing sleep. Voices in the darkness, gentle and familiar and strong and pleading, but that wasn't what made fear rise up in her throat to strangle her. Not those voices. The other voice. The voice of fear and touch and deeper sleep.

Something brushed her crippled hand, the scar that ran from the web of her thumb down past the protruding bones of her wrist. A butterfly touch. She jumped and nearly screamed at the sudden burst of terror that raked her. Blinding pain lanced her right temple. She touched a hand to her head, trying to keep her brains from spilling out of the crack in her skull that had never healed properly. What had touched her? Where was Coulson? Where was she? She couldn't be out here, she had to be in the Reverse-Tower, she was safe in the Reverse-Tower, like the golden-haired Ladderlocks, Rapunzel with her golden hair. Where was her father? Why wasn't he there?

Crisp chill whispered down her neck. A sudden gust of nippy wind, the spring bite of winter's fading chill. A strange cold sensation crept across her mind, filling her skull, dulling the edges of the spiking fear. Her heart began to slow. As her pulse calmed, the pain in her head eased. Swallowing hard, she opened her eyes and met a gaze of gray-green shadowed by worry.

"Alexandra?" Lukas murmured gently. He slowly reached out, like one would reach for a wild thing afraid of the taming, and took her crippled hand. First instinct had her trying to jerk away. He tightened his grip fractionally. Not enough to hold her if she _really_ wanted him to let go, but tight enough that she had to stop and think about why she wanted him to release her. "Alexandra, are you all right? You've gone pale."

"I'm…I'm always pale," she mumbled. His hand was warm around hers. His thumb stroked absently over the thick scar that ran over her right hand, barely a whisper of contact—as if he wanted to touch her, to perhaps comfort her, but didn't know how she would react. "I'm fine."

"Are you certain? Did I upset you? That was not my intention," he said in a low, coaxing voice. "Are you all right? Should I fetch your friend; the man I saw you with earlier? Should I get him?"

She shook her head—slowly, to keep the fragments of her skull from blazing with pain. If she kept movement to a minimum and made sure not to do anything that would raise her heart-rate or blood pressure, she ought to be fine. The headache hadn't had time to really take root and become unbearable. The pain would keep easing back as long as she was careful.

Forcing lightness into her voice, hoping it didn't shake, Alex smiled. "I'm sorry. I suddenly felt…I didn't feel well, but I'm okay now. So, 'Fair Rosalinda.' Do you know what it's about?" If he did, she wouldn't have to explain it. She wasn't sure she _could_ explain it without another panic attack.

"I'm sorry to confess I don't," Lukas said. "Do you know it?"

Alex nodded. Fixing her gaze on a worm trying to squirm through the emerald-bright grass beneath her feet—little did the worm know, it was heading for a quarter-sized black spider sitting patiently in its web on the bench supports—Alex took a deep breath.

"So Fair Rosalinda was a beautiful girl who lived in this village, right? And one day a lord came riding through the village, saw her, and fell violently in love. Unfortunately, he was married already, and Rosalinda didn't love him anyway. But the lord wouldn't accept a refusal from a peasant, so he kidnapped her and took her back to his castle, where he locked her in the tower and forced her to become his mistress. One day the lord had to go on a trip. While he was gone, the wife discovered Rosalinda and had her murdered for 'beguiling her husband' or whatever. When the lord returned and found Rosalinda dead, his wife convinced him that she'd died of natural causes. Distraught, he—okay, are you sure you want to hear this? It gets pretty gruesome at this point," Alex said with forced calm.

A dull ache had begun behind her eyes, but she was pretty sure she'd be able to get through the story without getting a migraine, and once that was done, her panic would fade. Everything would be fine. She wouldn't have to talk about Fair Rosalinda…one of the girls whose tales she'd found herself trapped in after the accident.

Lukas nodded, watching her with keen interest. A wrinkle had formed between his black eyebrows; Alex realized she wanted to smooth it away with the tips of her fingers. Which was ridiculous, bizarre, and distracting enough that she could keep going with the fairytale.

"Okay, so…um, where was I? Right. So, distraught by her death, the lord kept Rosalinda's corpse for like…seven years, I think. Something like that. We assume he preserved it with magic, but we don't actually know that. Only that he, uh…had a penchant for necrophilia and kept up his nightly visits despite her being dead. Ew. Jealous still, his wife took Rosalinda's corpse and cast into the river, where it moldered and rotted for goodness knows how long, until a shepherd boy saw her thigh and jaw bones sticking out of the mud and made a harp out of them, strung with her hair. Of course it's a magical harp that sings heartbreakingly beautiful songs, so the lord calls the shepherd boy to play for him and the harp sings of Rosalinda's death and the lord murders his wife in revenge, the end."

There. That hadn't been so hard. That had been easy. Except she could taste blood, sour and salty in her mouth, from where she'd been gnawing her tongue during the entire recitation. The fingers of her right hand spasmed in Lukas's grasp. His thumb swept across the pale, gray-pink scar as if stroking a fractious cat. The spasms subsided.

"That's it?" Lukas asked casually. "You're right—it _is_ a disturbing and gruesome story. And I can't see what relation it has to stories like 'Sleeping Beauty' or 'Red Riding Hood.' The conversation where I heard 'Fair Rosalinda' mentioned, that was the theory, that there was some connection."

"There is," Alex said through numb lips. Lukas raised an eyebrow at her, inviting her to share. She cleared her throat. "Um…rape. Either actual or allegorical, depending on what version of each story you read. And the girl in the tower is in both 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Rosalinda.' And technically you could say Red was living in a proverbial tower, considering her parents almost never let her out."

He nodded thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "An interesting analysis. The girl in the tower. Thank you, Alexandra. You've given me a place to start my studies." Suddenly he turned that vibrant emerald gaze on her. "How can I repay you? Would you allow me to take you out for…hmmm, coffee, perhaps? We could discuss things further."

"Why?" She blurted. Lukas blinked, and Alex noticed he had the longest, darkest eyelashes she'd ever seen on a man. "I mean…why would you want to go out anywhere with me?"

Lukas's brows furrowed slightly. He said in a carefully neutral tone, "You mean, why would a man like me wish to take you out for coffee? Why wouldn't I?"

"Because…I…"

"Because you're in a wheelchair?"

A spill of ice-water trickled down her spine. "Yeah."

He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. Lacing his fingers together, he set his chin on his hands and regarded her steadily. "So far, we have established that you and I share a place of birth, music, and an interest in fairytales. I have enjoyed the meeting. I've learned quite a bit. I didn't expect to. I would like to meet with you again. Do you object to my interest?"

Somehow she managed to stammer, "Well, no, but—I just—I mean, you—but I'm…" She trailed off, unable to find any acceptable way to finish that sentence. Finally, she just asked again, "Why?"

The handsome man beside her knocked her for a loop when he replied, "Because you're intelligent, knowledgeable, and attractive. Why not?"

He thought she was attractive? The thought left her dizzy. Men didn't find crippled girls with scars on their faces attractive. But…but he seemed sincere enough…

"I…" Stunned by his candor, Alex stammered, "Um…I…oh. Um…I don't drink coffee." She couldn't. She had to stay away from something with that much caffeine, and decaf had always tasted like watered-down sewage to her.

Seeing the shadow that seemed to shutter across Lukas's eyes, she managed to mentally smack herself into thinking like an intelligent individual and offered, "But…but Starbucks has these strawberries-and-cream frappuccinos, and we could…um…go for those. I guess. Um…if you want.

"Oh," she added, realization deflating the small bubble of fizzy excitement that had started swelling in her stomach. "I can't. I mean, today. I can't today. I have to go back to work soon. I'm only supposed to be out here for thirty minutes." And for the first time, she wished her dad had scheduled her to stay outside longer.

To her surprise, Lukas smiled in understanding. "Very well. Will tomorrow work better for you? We can meet here. The same time as today?"

A smile curved her mouth. She felt it tugging at the corners, felt it sweeping across her face, and almost fell over in shock that she could smile out here, out in the open, with strangers everywhere, just because of this man she'd never met before today. "I'd love to. Thank you."

At that point, Coulson ambled over and told her it was time for them to go. Knowing that she couldn't stay outside much longer—she'd scheduled her day around this thirty-minute tribulation-turned-adventure—she told Lukas that she'd meet him here the next day, and let Coulson wheel her toward the SHIELD van. She couldn't stop the smile that kept playing about her mouth.

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Loki watched the Midgardian girl go, and smiled. His seiðr had kept her calm enough for him to work his charms on her, and now he had another meeting arranged for the next day. Another chance to worm his way into her confidences. And it wouldn't be such a terrible hardship. Crippled and weak though she was, the girl was surprisingly intelligent. What subjects she enjoyed and studied, she knew well. Loki could respect that sort of dedication to the pursuit of knowledge. Discussing the fairy-stories would be less tedious than he'd expected.

She'd given him more information than he'd anticipated today, as well. Now he knew the full gruesome story of "Fair Rosalinda," though he didn't understand how it connected to the chit. The girl in the tower, perhaps? He didn't know…but now that he had a little more information, he could delve deeper into her journals and perhaps learn more.

_I don't want to be Fair Rosalinda,_ she'd written. What did that mean? The puzzle of it drove him mad. But Loki would get to the bottom of it soon enough. That little brain-teaser, and all the others wrapped around the Midgardian maiden. The girl would have no secrets from him by the time he was through with her.

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_**Author's Note:**__ so not only have they met, but they have plans for a second date! Woot! What do you guys think so far about everything they've talked about? Who thinks Nick might be a problem regarding the 2nd date? Just curious. Reviews are love. Love me! Hugs! Bye everyone!_


	8. Dance Me to the End

_**Author's Note:**__ so I'm updated ahead of schedule. Everyone thank SweetnSour333 and wbss21, because their epical reviews give me reason to work my butt off double-time instead of regular time. And everyone thank my hubby for posting this chapter now that he's off work and sooo sleepy. I love him. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!_

_Oh, and the chapter title comes from a song by The Civil Wars. Love that song._

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**Chapter Seven**

**Dance Me to the End…**

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Alex moved slowly down the corridor, arrowing—at a snail's pace—for her father's private quarters (where Agent Sitwell had said he'd be). She had everything she wanted to say prepared. She knew exactly how she wanted to handle this. The clincher would be whether she could get it all out without choking on the nerves dancing around in her chest along with her palpitating heart. Because what she was asking for was a big deal…and she wasn't entirely sure she actually wanted it. At least the first half.

She'd gone outside for the first time in who knew how long, and it had been like crawling over shards of broken glass while Coulson had driven her from SHIELD Underground to Central Park. Being at the Park—all those people staring and whispering, the sun so bright it was nearly blinding after the comforting shadows and false illumination of the Reverse-Tower, the warm April air squirming down her throat and into her lungs like maggots—had been even worse. Only the heavy pulsing decibels of her music had kept her from losing her mind, from breaking down and screaming at Coulson to please, _please_ take her back to the Tower.

And then…Lukas. Nearly all of the mind-numbing fear had gone away then. Vanished back to a time before her coma, before her accident, before gunshots that had drawn a curtain of darkness and cursed sleep over her life; a time before fear. She hadn't been so terribly afraid once he'd started talking to her. And he'd been so kind, so gentle. Even when she'd been panicking…

_He asked me out on a date,_ Alex reminded herself. Just the thought made her breathing kick up until she was almost lightheaded. She'd _never_ been asked out on a date before. Nick had had a very strict no-dating-before-sixteen policy, and Alex had been too busy with her dancing to have time for crushes or breaking the rules. Dancing for six hours a day, six days a week, didn't leave much time for screwing around. And then, not too long after she'd turned sixteen, had been the accident…the shooting…the coma…but she wouldn't think of that.

Pursing her lips, Alex focused on making as little noise as possible as she crutched down the hall. She didn't want her father to know she was coming. If she caught him by surprise, maybe she could shoot out her request and get him to agree out of sheer shock before he realized what she'd asked.

Thoughts of Lukas—his brilliant emerald eyes, charming smile, the rich dark-chocolate voice—swirled around in her head along with the carefully-rehearsed words of her proposal. Alex sucked in a deep breath when she got to the door of her father's quarters. When she pressed the button for entry, the doors whooshed open with a soft hiss. She quickly went inside.

Nick wasn't in the entryway. When Alex poked her head into the living room area, she didn't see him there, either. The door to his office was open. Cautiously Alex approached; if Nick was in the middle of something, she didn't want to interrupt. Of course, if he was distracted, she might get her way faster. She'd have to weigh the outcome after she discovered whatever it was he was doing. So she peeked around the edge of the open office door…

…and froze, agony clamping down hard on her chest like a vise. Shock froze the blood in her veins, turning it to lethal shards of crystalline ice. Pain spiked through her right temple, clawing at the back of her right eye so that dark spots swam across half her vision. Her fingers convulsed around the handle of her crutch. If not for that crutch, and the steadiness of the doorframe, she would've fallen.

Nick Fury sat in profile, eyes glued to a monitor screen. On screen, a slim girl in a crimson and orange leotard and skirt sprinkled with gold glitter, vermillion and amber feathers in her carefully-styled hair, executed a perfect _piqué_ across a stage. When the girl glided into position to the strains of Stravinsky's _The Firebird_, Nick drew a shuddering breath. His hand drifted up to cover his mouth. Stravinsky's music morphed from the terrifying brass notes to soft, sweet melodies on joyous silver strings, and the girl began to spin in _fouetté rond de jambe en tournant_, her lithe body pivoting swiftly and gracefully on her right foot as she executed the series of difficult turns on the tips of her toes, a beaming smile on her enraptured face. For several minutes the girl danced on. As the music finally ended and the girl dropped into an elegant curtsy, a single tear rolled down Nick Fury's cheek to soak into the shadow of his beard.

Alex cleared her throat. Her heart hammered painfully in her throat. "Dad," she croaked. Nick jumped as if someone had shot him, whipping around to face his daughter. He swallowed audibly. Alex saw that his hand shook when he picked up the remote and paused the recording of one of her student showcases, where she'd danced as the Firebird. The screen froze an image of thirteen-year-old Alex rising from her curtsy. Clearing her throat again, the adult Alex demanded in a voice that shook nearly as badly as her crippled hand and leg, "What are you doing?"

"I…I was just watching one of your old videos."

The words seared her throat when she said, "I thought you got rid of them all."

Nick rubbed the back of his neck. "I put them in storage, Aurora. I wasn't going to throw them out."

"Why not?" She demanded. When her father didn't answer right away, something hot and vicious and sharp as a tangle of thorns broke loose in her chest and lodged in her heart. "Why not?" She shouted, ignoring the scalding pulses of pain rocketing around inside her skull. "I'll never be able to dance again. I'll never be able to do _that_ again!" Her good hand flicked dismissively at the screen. "Why keep them?"

Her father looked away. "Maybe today isn't the best time to discuss this. You had a hard time outside, I know, and I don't want to argue with you. We'll talk about it later when you're calmer, all right?"

"No, we're going to talk about it _now!_ Get _rid_ of them! I don't _want_ them here!"

"Aurora, there's no reason to throw them—"

"_I don't want them here!_" Her head was pounding, pounding. Agony shot spears of red-hot wire through her fragmenting skull. The black dots swimming in front of her eyes multiplied and grew fat. She swayed. Her good leg threatened to buckle.

"Aurora—"

"_That's __**not**__ my __**name!**_" She couldn't suppress the undercurrent of fear and desperation in her voice, and she knew Nick heard it. He surged to his feet, and she quailed from him, but couldn't stop the poisonous words spilling from her mouth. "I'm not _her_ anymore! I'm never going to be her again! I'm—not—Aurora—anymore!" Tears spilled down her cheeks as an oceanic roaring filled her ears. "I'm…not…"

Then the pain in her skull and everything else was too much, and she fainted.

**.**

Loki studied the girl from his vantage point _between_, wondering what had happened while he'd been out making provisions for his plans regarding worming his way into the Midgardian maiden's confidences. When he'd bid her farewell at the Park, she'd been shyly excited about the prospect of meeting him on the morrow. Yet now she lay on her bed in her room, scarred brow furrowed in pain, ashen as a corpse, a purple bruise flowering on her cheekbone. What had happened? The pseudo-Æsir had heard something about a fainting spell…

Two other Midgardians occupied the girl's chambers. One, a compact female warrior in the SHIELD uniform, her dark hair cut sleekly to her skull, worry twisting her features—she sat on Alex's bed and held her limp right hand. The other was a slender man with curly red hair and spectacles perched on his nose, wearing a sleeveless argyle knit vest over a button-down white shirt. He scanned the circular room with keen eyes.

Suddenly Alexandra moaned softly, shifted. Her eyes opened with a flutter of dark lashes. She blinked confusedly at the ceiling of her bedroom before focusing on the woman at her side. She frowned. "Mom?" Then she cringed and brought both hands up to her head. "Oh, jeez…hn. Ow. What happened?"

"You and your father got in an argument and you fainted," the woman—Alexandra's mother?—said gently. "Alex, honey, we've talked about this. You can't let yourself get so excited about things. Your body can't handle it."

Loki's lip curled. The bratling had fainted because of a mere _argument?_ What was the matter with her, that she was so weak her body couldn't withstand the so-called strain of simply raising her voice? Just when he thought he could find nothing else about her to scorn, she went and revealed a weakness like that. Pathetic.

"He still has the tapes," Alexandra mumbled into her hands, catching the Frost Giant's attention. His brow arched. Tapes? What tapes? "I told you guys to get _rid_ of them _months_ ago. Why do you still have them?"

"Because we love you, honey."

Something about the woman's tone and the way Alexandra stiffened brought back a flash of memory to Loki. Eyes the color of honeyed mead, dark with sorrow and apology but somehow still lit from within by devotion; an aristocratic and beautiful face soft with mother-love and shadowed by regret; Frigg, whispering, _You are our son, Loki…and we, your family_. Frigg, his moth—

_No,_ Loki snarled at himself. _Not now._ Wrenching his thoughts away from Asgard and its queen, he focused once more on the Midgardian girl on the bed. What would she say in response to her mother's declaration? Her entire body was braced for battle.

The girl dropped her hands from in front of her face. Squinting at her mother, her face lined with pain, she said coldly, "If that were true, you would've torched the stupid things when I asked you to. There's no point in keeping them. Get rid of them. I'm serious."

"Alex…why? Can't your father and I watch you—"

"_No_," the girl said tightly. "No, you _can't_ watch me."

Her mother frowned. "Why not? I'm actually kind of partial to that video of you dancing to 'The Pines of Rome' when you were nine—"

Alex bolted upright, then groaned and hunched down, cradling her head in her hands. Pressing her hands tight against her temples, she said through gritted teeth, "Mom, I swear if you don't stop talking about it, I'll scream. I don't want to think about 'The Pines of Rome.' I don't want to remember dancing 'The Firebird' or being the Arabian Queen or…or Giselle or Florine or dancing in Coppélia. I don't want to remember my audition for _Swan Lake_. I don't want to remember! That part of my life is over! Shut up, Dr. Hopper," she added savagely when the bespectacled man opened his mouth to speak.

Loki was frowning, studying the girl with new eyes. Dancing. Dancing? The girl had been a dancer? In Asgard, a woman who danced for a living was known sometimes to offer other services to paying customers, but the pseudo-Asgardian knew this wasn't the case—anymore, at any rate—on Midgard. Besides, the girl was too shy and generally sweet-natured to have ever been a prostitute. The way she'd acted at the Park when he'd suggested a rendezvous, she practically had the word "virgin" branded on her forehead.

A dancer; he could scarcely fathom this crippled wreck of a woman-child ever being graceful enough, powerful enough…Bor's ghost, even simply _able-bodied_ enough to be a dancer, of all things! The girl could barely walk. She _couldn't_ be a dancer…

Then he thought of the collection of music boxes in the glass display case in her closet, and the single music box on her desk. Thought of the tiny dancer-figurines inside the boxes, how they spun in graceful pirouettes as the music chimed from the empty boxes. How Alexandra had stared at the one on her desk, watching the little figurine dance while the music played. Her eyes had grown wider and wider until they'd practically swallowed up the rest of her face. Her fingers had pressed into the wood of her desk until her fingertips turned purple with blood, then gone pale. Like a phantom shadow in his mind, he remembered the odd _something_ in the girl's eyes. He realized now it had been hunger.

"Agent Hill, I think we should leave Aurora alone for right now," the slender man said. Loki barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Were these Midgardians so simple that they couldn't remember the girl preferred the name Alexandra? Dr. Hopper continued, "I think she needs some time to deal with today's events. Going outside for an entire half-hour must have been very stressful—"

"That reminds me," Alexandra said, every word carved from ice. Loki could see she was still pale, sweating now. Her fingers pressed hard against her right temple. He knew that as soon as her mother and this Dr. Hopper left the room, she'd be laid out on her bed, holding herself immobile to minimize the excruciating pain. "I'm going out again tomorrow. I want to go by myself and I don't want a wheelchair."

"Out of the question," her mother said immediately. "You don't go anywhere by yourself."

"Mom—"

Loki reached out, still swathed in the shroud of _between_ so that none could see him, hear him, feel him. His fingertips touched the tight muscles at the back of Alexandra's neck. Because of the headache burning through her skull, Loki knew he'd have to use more power than before to get the result he wanted. Gathering the tendrils of _seiðr_ around him, weaving them around the trembling girl, he leaned in. Blew a soft, cool breath in her ear.

His breath misted on the air as icy cold descended over him. Could Alexandra feel it? Loki saw gooseflesh ripple across the mortal's arms. Power curled around them both as the prince whispered, "A bodyguard or two would work, but you don't want more than that. The wheelchair is fine."

He saw the way she shuddered, then murmured woodenly, "Fine. A bodyguard or two would work, but I don't want more than that. Okay? I don't need a bunch of babysitters. And…and the wheelchair is fine, too…I guess." He noticed her fingers scrunching in the black knit blanket on her bed. "I…I can handle…I can handle the…the chair."

Alexandra's mother tucked a curl behind the girl's ear. "Honey…there's nothing wrong with being in a wheelchair."

The girl pulled away from her mother. Stared hard at the blankets with wide, unblinking eyes and hunched her shoulders while she massaged her temple. "I'm tired," she said abruptly. "I think I'm going to take a nap. Good night, Mom. Bye, Dr. Hopper."

When she was alone, she fell back onto the bed and curled her left leg against her chest. Her right leg, cruelly twisted and a good three inches shorter than the other leg, stuck out at an awkward angle diagonally across the bed. Loki watched as she closed her eyes and forced her entire body to relax as much as she could manage. His own power coiled and twisted inside her skull, dulling the sharpest edges of the pain. A few tears managed to escape from beneath her lashes, to spill over her cheeks before splashing onto her pillows. Why, Loki wondered with no little irritation, was the girl crying? The pain wasn't _that_ bad; not anymore, at any rate.

"How could he do this to me?" Alexandra whispered, blinking as more tears fell. She drew a shuddering breath. "Why does he still have those stupid recordings?" She shoved at the dark curls that normally hung in her face. "He was supposed to get _rid_ of them. He was supposed to…" And then she began to sob openly, scrunching into herself as best she could with the impediment of her bad leg. She beat her fist into the pillow, whispering between clenched teeth, "It's over, it's over, it's over! Don't they get it?"

Thoroughly disgusted with her childish tantrum, Loki turned his back on the mortal chit and side-stepped into the aether of _between_. He came out in Nick Fury's private quarters. A recording of his daughter would most likely be found there, not in his public office.

Alexandra had been a dancer? Well, Loki supposed that could be up to interpretation. He'd seen what many Midgardians considered dancing, which fell far below the pseudo-Æsir's standards. He wanted to see for himself. So he would see for himself. If the girl _was_ a dancer, or had been, and had been crippled…it might give him more insight in how to manipulate her, might make it easier for him to understand her.

He found the stack of black plastic rectangles in Fury's private office—VHS tapes, a form of mortal recording that hadn't been used in several years. How long had it been since Alexandra had stopped dancing? The labels were handwritten. There were dozens upon dozens of tapes, spanning back years. Loki studied them, scanning the labels. He selected one video from each available year.

_First Ballet Class—First Showcase—First Recital—Christmas Recital '93  
>Spring Recital '94—Summer Showcase '94—Summer Recital '94<br>Snow White '95 (Mouse)—The Nutcracker '95 (Polichinelle)—Cinderella '95 (Bluebird)  
>Fall Showcase '96— Mistletoe '96 (Snowflake)—The Nutcracker '96 (Mouse)<br>Les Sylphides '97—Swan Lake '97 (Cygnet)—Snow White '97 (Faun)  
>The Little Match Girls '98—Twelve Dancing Princesses '98 (Princess #7)—Giselle '98 (Ghost)<br>La Sylphide '99 (Sylph)—Napoli '99 (Fish)—Summer Recital '99  
>Winter Showcase 2000—Christmas Recital 2000—New Years Showcase 2000<br>The Nutcracker '01 (Shepherdess)—Swan Lake '01 (Cygnet)—Giselle '01 (Giselle)  
>Cinderella '02 (Stepsister)—Sleeping Beauty '02 (Red Riding Hood)—Summer Showcase '02<br>The Firebird '03 (Firebird)—Snow White '03 (Snow White)—The Nutcracker '03 (Spanish Chocolate)  
><em>_Coppélia__'04 (Swanhilde)—Sleeping Beauty '04 (Princess Florine)—The Nutcracker '04 (Arabian Queen)  
>Sleeping Beauty '05 (The White Cat)—Swan Lake '05 (OdetteOdile)—Summer Showcase '05  
><em>_Cinderella__ '06 (__Cinderella)__—Sleeping Beauty '06 (Aurora)—The Nutcracker '06 (Clara)_

Catching at the threads of power all around him, he wove a handful of spells together to give him time. He wanted to scan the videos, watch how the girl had progressed from a young child to the last video in the collection. To see her grow up…perhaps it would give him insight. She would have changed over time, but he would be able to get a sense of her, of what had formed and molded her into the woman she was now.

Loki set up a barrier between the study and the rest of SHIELD Underground, to keep the Midgardians out. It would warn him if anyone was coming, giving him enough time to put up an illusion to hide his presence. Then he picked up the first tape and slipped it into the VCR.

For the next several hours, he watched Alexandra's progression through the thirteen years of recordings. Three-year-old Alexandra had been small, with a toddler's plumpness, a fluffy corona of frizzy dark hair cascading around her head in natural ringlets. She'd been barely more than a baby, yet there had been an odd, smiling studiousness in the child that had struck a chord in Loki, though he couldn't have said why.

The girl was so young, yet she'd been so serious and dedicated. In a way, she reminded him of Thor. Thor as a child had been determined to be the greatest warrior Asgard had ever seen. He'd often had the same fierce expression as Alexandra sometimes wore on stage.

And then there was the way she moved…smooth, efficient, all grace and subtle power instead of brute force and lumbering presence. She'd have made a skilled warrior—for a Midgardian—if not for being crippled.

As a boy Loki had been mocked by some of the Asgardian children—though, he thought with an odd pricking behind his breastbone, Thor had never said anything—for his appreciation for more things than bashing his peers with wooden practice swords. He'd loved art, music. His mother had taught him to play the dulcimer as a child. Later he'd studied the lute, the lyre. He'd also enjoyed watching, learning, absorbing the beauty of the world around him. Studying the skillfulness of artisans, craftsmen, and performers.

Because of that, Loki could appreciate what he saw now on the screen.

He watched Alex grow from toddler to child, still with those ringlets, still with that fierce dedication to dancing. He could see she'd actually _had_ skill. The steps were simple, but then again, she was still a little girl. As the videos progressed from adolescence to maidenhood, and the girl began to dance more difficult roles, Loki found himself fascinated. Midgardians could butcher so much—music, language, literature, dancing—yet they also had _this?_ The sinuous movements, the power of the steps, surprised him. Asgard had no such dancing as ballet. There was skill required for such a style. Not just skill, but _presence_. Alexandra had had both. She was good enough, Loki realized, that had she been a dancer of the same skill-level on Asgard, he would have spoken to her father and offered to become her patron.

It surprised Loki to see the difference in Alexandra as she'd danced in the recordings compared to the way she was now. Not just crippled in body, he realized—watching avidly as she twisted and curved her body like a jeweled serpent while playing the "Arabian Queen"—but crippled in spirit. How strange…Had it been this shattered dream of dancing that had left her such a pitiful wreck of a girl? The sparkle and spirit of the young dancer on screen was missing from the Midgardian woman he'd met at the Park.

Viewing done, Loki put everything back in order and slipped out of the room. Was the girl sleeping as she claimed she would? Or was she working on the tesseract translations? Or doing something else entirely?

He found Alexandra asleep on her bed, her cheeks still wet with tears. Dozens of books and children's illustrated stories littered the floor around the bed. Under her outstretched hand was a thin stack of papers. Her notes on the tesseract's obscure messages, Loki realized. Several phrases had been circled in red and linked together, or linked to notations scribbled in the page margins. He scanned her fresh notes.

_Black bear and black wolf are same person. Red death is Red Skull? Probably. Who is the Sleeper? Can't be me. Black bear has something to do with magic. East of the sun, west of the moon is Jötunheim? Possible references to Sleeping Beauty, East of Sun/West of Moon, Snow White, Hans My Hedgehog, and The Snow Queen. Son of the hearth might be black bear/black wolf. Potential son of the hearth—hearth gods/mythological entities: Jack-o-Lantern, Hephaestus/Vulcan, Loki, Nectan, Lugh, Dažbog_.

Emerald eyes widened as Loki spotted his own name among the short list. Son of the hearth…could it possibly be…? But then how did that affect the tesseract's odd messages? He rapidly scanned Alexandra's notes. Following her theory of the bear and the wolf, he puzzled out the following message.

"_'Need Loki.  
>Caught in thorns.<br>The walls are falling up._

_"'In the long dark.  
>Winter found Loki.<br>Need Loki.  
>Need Loki.<br>Fight winter blood._

_"'Need Grace through seasons  
>Need maker of broken things.<em>  
><em>Loki lost.<br>Loki need to find._

_"'Red Death touch spindle.  
>Sleep, cold sleep.<br>Long sleep in winter.  
>Blood on snow.<em>

_"'Sleeper need Loki.  
>Magic need Loki.<br>Loki and Loki come.  
>Magic from Jötunheim.<em>

_"Loki run from winter blood.  
>Loki lost to thorns.<br>Loki need Sleeper.  
>Sleeper's blood feeds thorns.<br>Red Death waiting to wake.'"_

No, the girl had to be mistaken. The line "wolf and bear come" meant that the bear and the wolf couldn't be the same creature. And yet…an odd niggling sensation continued to nag at him. What if the girl was right? If he'd replaced his name in the text correctly, than "magic" needed him. Not only magic, but the Sleeper—whoever they were. And apparently he needed the Sleeper as well. Who was it? Why did he need them, and vice versa? Could it be Alexandra? And what did the tesseract mean, that he was lost? And he certainly didn't run from anything.

Loki replaced the pages beneath the girl's hand, careful not to wake her. He would see her tomorrow, and perhaps get more information out of her. Until then he would be patient and observe the tesseract's behavior…and eventually he _would_ figure out what the blasted thing was trying to tell him.

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_**Author's Note:**__ and here we are with more progress made on the tesseract translations. What do you guys think our little blue box is trying to say? And now Loki has seen what Alex used to be. What do you guys think of that? Thoughts on the chapter as a whole? LA loves you guys, and I hope you love me, too! Reviews make me happy! *hugs*_


	9. Rhapsody in Blue

_**Author's Note:**__ so here we are, back with another chapter. Eepies! Who's happy to see me? Huggles to everyone, double-huggles, because I'm so glad to be updating. Hope you all enjoy this chapter and I'll see you at the end. Yay!_

_Oh, and I mention a song in this chapter you guys should_ totally _listen to, it's so beautiful, it's from_ The Nutcracker. _It's called "Pax de Deux Adagio," and you can find it on Youtube. It's so beautiful and sad (and, incidentally, it makes an appearance in this chapter and is Alex's favorite song)._

_Laters,_

_LA_

_PS - I struggled with the title for this chapter for awhile, but I was listening to the soundtrack for_ Fantasia 2000 _(because it has Stravinsky's "The Firebird" on it at the end) and I decided on "Rhapsody in Blue" because…well, you'll see when we join up with Alex._

_._

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**Chapter Eight**

**Rhapsody in Blue**

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Nick Fury wasn't an idiot; which, he told himself, was why he'd avoided his daughter's room most of the day. Ever since she'd yelled at him about watching that old recording of her dancing in _The Firebird_, and then crumpled to the floor, he hadn't known how to approach her to make amends for whatever had upset her so much. Give her time to calm down, Coulson had suggested. Letting Hill and Dr. Hopper handle Rory when she woke up had been Nick's own idea. Apparently neither one had really worked, according to the SHIELD psychiatrist, because Aurora had woken up and become agitated again when she discovered Hill had known about Nick holding onto the old dance tapes.

Why did it bother his daughter so much? She'd been so beautiful on the _Firebird_ tape, so happy. Nick hadn't seen that smile on his daughter's face in more than seven years. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her smile—really smile—since she'd woken from her coma. What would it take, the SHIELD director wondered, to make his daughter smile again?

It was evening now; Aurora was probably asleep after the strains of the day. There was no point going to see her now. No point trying to talk to her about how the day had gone. She'd refused to speak to Dr. Hopper about venturing outside that morning. Coulson, however, had said he'd come to speak to Nick about what had happened after the work day ended. Until then, Nick wanted to watch the tapes again. It was the only time he caught a glimpse of Aurora looking even remotely happy.

He picked up the tape labeled _Ondine '05 (Ondine)—Sea Shadows '05—Orpheus '05 (Eurydice)_ and slipped it into the VCR. The tape had been stopped during his last viewing near the end of Act 3 of _Ondine_. Swathed in ragged scraps of cerulean, aquamarine, and pale celadon, Aurora seemed to glide through invisible waters like an ocean sprite as she danced with the boy playing Hildegrim, as he guided her through the final _pas de deux_, or duet. Nick watched the young man fall in a carefully choreographed swoon as the curse of loving a water spirit fell upon him, and watched as his daughter silently and poignantly showed her crushing grief before the curtain fell.

Not the happiest ballet she'd ever done, but it was only a little more than five minutes of grief before the tape continued into _Sea Shadows_—a performance where Rory didn't smile, and didn't need to. Nick could see the joy of dancing radiating from her like a light as she moved gracefully, beautifully, one of the rare modern ballets she'd danced during her relatively short career.

She'd been so happy then. Why did seeing this make her so sad now?

A shadow drifted into Nick's awareness, but he didn't pause the tape. He continued to watch Aurora move with sinuous, serpentine grace under blue stage-lights as Coulson stepped into the room. His third-in-command stood in silence for a while, also watching the tape.

Finally Coulson spoke. "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

"She's still beautiful," Nick replied, rubbing a finger over his chin while Aurora's partner lifted her in his arms, easy as a bird taking flight. "What happened today, Coulson?"

"Well, Boss…she met someone."

Nick paused the tape. "She _met_ someone? Who? What happened?"

Coulson cleared his throat. "I didn't ask for his driver's license, Nick. I didn't want to scare the guy off. He seemed okay, and he was good with her, from what I saw. She didn't freak out or signal me or anything."

"What. Happened."

The SHIELD agent sighed. Nick wondered absently if he'd expected his boss to ask these questions. Whatever he'd expected, Coulson replied, "When we arrived at the Park, she told me to wheel her over to this bench under a tree. There was an adult male, Caucasian, possibly early thirties, short black hair, reading a book on the bench. They ignored each other at first and Alex asked me to give her some space. I observed from about twenty yards away as the man spoke to her. Instead of panicking, as I expected, she responded shyly and then seemed to become engrossed in their conversation. As she seemed to be enjoying herself, I didn't interfere. They spoke for the rest of the thirty minutes she was scheduled to be outside. When I wheeled her back to the van, she was smiling. A _real_ smile," Coulson added.

Nick understood the significance of that statement. Someone, a stranger, had made his daughter smile. When she'd been _outside_. He would've thought such a thing to be impossible. The thought of this man, whoever he was, catching a glimpse of Aurora's elusive but brilliant smile…A sharp pain sliced through Nick's chest to pierce his heart like an arrow. He swallowed hard. Rory never smiled for _him_. Or for Hill. Why?

"She wasn't happy about the wheelchair," Coulson added. "She told me to tell you…" He trailed off.

A rueful smile tugged at Nick's lips. "Let me guess—that I could go warm my toes in Hell."

Coulson winced. "Pretty much. She was really upset, Boss. Yet despite how much she _really_ doesn't want to go out in a wheelchair, she's agreed to put up with it if she can go to Starbucks tomorrow. I talked to her about it a little while ago when I dropped off the new Cube photos. That should tell you something; she's willing to be in a wheelchair _and_ have two bodyguards with her if you'll let her go to Starbucks with this guy."

Nick's single good eye bored a hole in the paused television screen for several interminable moments before he finally sighed and straightened in his chair. He pinned Coulson with his Cyclopean gaze.

"Get this guy's information, Coulson. Make sure he's not a HYDRA agent or something. I want her safe."

Coulson nodded, smiling a little. "Will do, but I'll have to be discreet. I got a photo with my phone when Alex wasn't looking; we'll run his face through our database and see if anything pops. I don't think it will, though, Boss. I've got a good feeling about this guy. He just gave off some good vibes. He was really good with Alex. There was a moment when she started to freak out a little, but he calmed her down before it could blow up into a problem. She seemed to really like him."

"Yeah, well," Nick muttered, "he could still be working for HYDRA. Run him twice, just to make sure."

"Yes, sir." Coulson turned to leave the room, but hesitated at the doorway. "Sir? Did Alex ever mention anything about going into the Tesseract Room about two weeks ago, at around three in the morning?" Nick frowned and shook his head. "Did Agent Hill or Barton mention it?"

Another headshake. "Why?"

"It's just…Alex asked me if she was in trouble for going into the Tesseract Room so late; she was wondering, since you hadn't said anything to her. She thought maybe you were angry about it. I told her that as far as I knew, no one had noticed her being there. I checked the security footage and didn't see her on the tape. No one who was on duty that night remembers seeing her."

Nick shrugged. "She probably just dreamed it. She's not exactly inconspicuous."

"Yeah," Coulson murmured. "Probably just a dream."

But Nick could tell that for some reason, the other SHIELD agent wasn't entirely convinced.

**.**

Alex leaned back in her desk chair, studying the latest collection of photographs of the Cube that Coulson had brought her. The otherworldly blue box had been spouting nonsensical Swedish and German messages again, a whole new batch. Blue eyes roved over the first of the glossy snapshots included in this latest collection.

Her computer was already up and running, humming with electricity as she settled her headset into place and moved her microphone to her lips. This would give her something to work on so she didn't have a chance to freak out about her father lying to her, or about tomorrow.

About seeing Lukas again.

"Wake up," Alex commanded her voice-recognition program, the pre-coded phrase to activate the software. "Open program—Microsoft Word. New document. Save under 'Cube translations—Swedish—Two.'" She nudged her mouse until the cursor hovered over the fresh Word document. "Mouse click," she added to start the cursor blinking, a sign that she could start dictating. "Record the following. 'Translation of image two-dash-one through two-dash-six, as follows...

"_And still she sleeps.  
>Why does she sleep?<br>Winter has come for her.  
>Grace is needed here.<br>Wake up. Wake up._

_"Death has a lover.  
>Red death is not Death's lover.<br>Death and the lover are broken asunder.  
>Red death sleeps in cold darkness.<br>Death's lover is coming._

_"The thorns draw their hearts' blood.  
>Blood has spilled across ice.<br>The solstice swine bleeds.  
>The love of a brother draws cold blood.<br>The love for a father brings the void.  
>Fear the voice in the darkness no longer.<em>

_"Black wolf prowls the thorn thicket.  
>Black bear rages for his lassling.<br>Emeralds burn with a cold fire.  
>East of the sun, west of the moon—<br>Shattered by the burning bridge.  
>He mourns in silence, unknown.<em>

_"The Sleeper must awaken soon.  
>You cannot remain in the tower.<br>Let down your sable hair.  
>Open your casket of glass.<br>You must heal the heart of winter.  
>The son of the hearth needs the Sleeper.<em>

_"Fire is ice.  
>Sleep is Grace.<br>We are waking up_."

Alex stared at the screen after she finished translating the newest batch of messages. She still remembered that late-night rush to the Tesseract Room in the wake of her scattered, abstract nightmare. The electric blue words printed across the Cube's surface had sent a frisson of dread shivering down her spine.

_You are the Sleeper. The black wolf watches you now._ She hadn't wanted to think she might be the Sleeper of the Cube's sporadic messages. Had feared what it would mean if she was. Did the strange mazarine device know about her coma? What else did the Cube know about her? Did it know about what had happened at Thornwood? _Thorns draw their hearts' blood…Black wolf prowls the thorn thicket_. Alex's heart threatened to pound into her throat and strangle her at the thought, at what those words might mean.

Small bursts of pain lanced her right temple. She massaged the thick, pale scar that ran from beneath her hairline along her temple to the corner of her eye. The former dancer despised that scar, the way it pulled at her right eye more than a little and marred the line of her hair. How had Lukas overlooked it before? Would he notice it tomorrow?

_I'm not supposed to be thinking about that right now,_ Alexandra thought. She pressed her fingers against the scar, stroking to soothe the pain that emanated from beneath the old, half-healed head injury. _I'm supposed to be thinking about the Cube and whatever the heck it's trying to tell me. Not that I'm having much luck,_ she added with no little asperity. A sigh heaved out of her. She had no _idea_ what these strange prose-poem stanzas could mean. Unless…Her eyes darted to the line _Fire is ice._ Eyes widening, she straightened in her chair.

"Computer, make notation. Quote: _Fire is ice_. End quote. Possible correlation to the line, quote, _you must heal the heart of winter_, end-quote, and quote, _the son of the hearth needs the Sleeper_, end-quote. Possibility that 'son of the hearth' and 'the heart of winter' are the same person? High. But what does that mean?" A sudden flash of insight had her scrabbling for the list of mythological figures she'd found online and in her books for whom the term "son of the hearth" could apply. Slapping the list onto her desk left-handed, she hastily scanned the names she'd printed there.

_Potential son of the hearth—hearth gods/mythological entities: Jack-o-Lantern, Hephaestus/Vulcan, Loki, Nectan, Lugh, Dažbog_.

How many of those gods and mythical figures had anything to do with ice or winter? Balance was a precarious dream as she stretched out and tried to grab one of the picture books in its stack near her bed, _Dažbog and His Three Daughters_. Dažbog was a Slavic sun and fire god who was also considered to be a household deity/patron. And he had something to do with winter, she thought…or maybe night time. She couldn't remember. The book would tell her.

The fingers of her left hand caressed the beautifully golden lettering surrounded by embossed silver stars on the cover of the picture book while she balanced the pasteboard book carefully atop her paralyzed right hand. Then Alex flipped it open and began speed-reading through the pages. As she read, she muttered into her microphone so the voice-recognition program would take notes for her.

"Jack-o-Lantern, Hephaestus/Vulcan, Nectan, and Lugh have no relation to winter or ice. Dažbog's relationship with winter or ice? Let's see…Dažbog is a sun god, blah-blah-blah, dies every night at sunset, uh-huh, then returns to his palace of ice and starlight in the far northern reaches of the heavens. His three daughters, the Zwezda, take turns watching over him, blah-blah, yada-yada."

She snapped the book the shut and set it aside. Another girl, in just as much of a hurry, might have tossed it, but Alex had been taught years ago to treat her books with care. They were all still in about the same condition that they'd been in when they'd been purchased. Most of her picture books were collector's items, as well, and extremely useful for research purposes, so she didn't exactly consider it a hardship. Settling back in the comfy computer chair, Alex adjusted her microphone and kept talking.

"So far the only mythological creature who fits both 'hearth' and 'winter' is Loki, the Frost Giant of Nordic myth. This fits with my theory regarding Jötunheim being the place found 'east of the sun, west of the moon.' May fit with notation of 'black bear' if so. Common icon found in Scandinavian fairytales is the 'brown bear of Norway' and the 'black bull of Norway.' Possibility that Loki is the son of the hearth, and the heart of winter, and the black bear? Unknown. And the question remains," she added softly, catching her bottom lip between her teeth, "who is the red death? And what did the Cube mean about Death's lover?"

Alex stared at her computer screen, hardly blinking, for several minutes without moving. She only shifted once, just enough to grab a bag of Skittles. Tearing through the shiny red package, she poured a handful of the chewy fruit-flavored candies into her palm and tossed them back the way she'd learned to toss back the Vicodin she sometimes had to take for the pain that sometimes flared deep in the joints of her left leg. Chewing thoughtfully, she frowned at the screen. Finally she spoke the words that had been sitting at the back of her skull for over a week.

"Notation, long-dash—am I the Sleeper?"

Her hands started to shake. Slowly, carefully, she lowered them to the smooth surface of her desk and pressed them flat to the cool, polished, whitewashed wood paneling. Closing her eyes, Alex forced herself to draw a deep breath into lungs gone viciously tight.

What if she _was_ the Sleeper?

_Is it strange_, she wondered a little hysterically, feeling as fragile and hollow as a soap bubble, _that the only reason I'm freaking out is because of what Dad might find out or say if I am? Or is that just really, really pathetic and stupid?_ Swallowing hard, she pushed her chair back, trying to get a little distance between herself and the screen, herself and the collection of photos. There were two sets; she'd only looked at the first.

She didn't know if she had the courage to look at the second set just then. Not with all the possibilities ricocheting around in her still-broken skull like bullets. Instead she pulled the music box she kept perched on top of her CPU down from its place and set it on her desk. Taking another steadying breath, she drew open a desk drawer. Inside, taped to the underside of the desk itself, hidden by the drawer, was a small key. Barely an inch long, it felt slender and delicate in her grip. Inserting the key in the keyhole, she turned it in the lock. The single tumbler clicked softly. Alex flipped back the lid of the music box.

A small oval mirror on the underside of the lid showed just the tiniest portion of her face. The pale mauve satin lining was cool and smooth to the touch; Alex remembered back when she'd been Aurora, and she'd stroked the lovely satin whenever she needed comforting or strength. Her father never went into this box. Neither did her mother, or Uncle Phil, or Dr. Hopper. No one was allowed to see what she kept inside this box. If anyone ever found out, she'd be done for. Her parents would never let it go.

With one finger Alex stirred the tiny, miniature ballet slippers. Each one was different; each one was hand-crafted, custom-made to order; each was a piece of her heart, representing one of the performances she'd done in her life. It was the one thing she allowed herself from her old life. She knew it was stupid…but she couldn't walk away. Not completely.

Tinkling chimes played her favorite, _favorite_ song of all time—"Pas de Deux Adagio" from _The Nutcracker_. The slim ballerina figurine, painted with palest rose and swathed in white tulle, spun slowly on her tiptoes to the music. A single slipper atop the pile of tiny _pointe_ shoes—a creamy rose so pale it was nearly white but dusted with silvery crystalline glitter like a sugar plum—matched the music. The sight and sound of the box's contents and lone mechanical inhabitant helped Alexandra slow down her thoughts. Helped her to think clearly. But it also sent an ache clutching at her throat so tightly she thought drawing another breath was going to be impossible.

This was why she didn't want her father to keep those recordings—because she could still remember each one perfectly. Because she'd never forgotten what it felt like to sweat beneath the heat of the stage-lights while she forced her body to bend and turn and glide as if she were made of air or water or light, not flesh and blood and bone. And the twenty-three-year-old knew her father would never understand that.

Once she'd managed to calm her racing heart and settle her thoughts, Alex closed the lid of the music box. Locked it up tight once more. She stowed the key, replaced the box atop the CPU. Then she went back to the Cube translations.

Putting the first six photos from the new batch aside and pulling out the second of the two sets of Polaroids, she adjusted her headset and said, "Okay. Computer, insert hard line break. Repeat." Her gaze focused on the first line of text on the first of the new half-dozen photos. What she saw made her swallow hard. Somehow her voice came out half-way steady as she ordered, "Record the following: 'Translation of image three-dash-one through three-dash-six, as follows...

_"The Sleeper is the swan, black and white.  
>Black wolf hunts the white swan.<br>Black bear guards the black swan.  
>The clockwork doll is breaking down.<br>Need the fixer of broken things.  
>The Firebird smolders to ash.<em>

_"Death's Lover seeks us.  
>The pearl of the soul of the world.<br>The Katschei is coming.  
>He will fetter the black wolf,<br>Put jesses on the swan.  
>He will break the shield asunder.<em>

_"Do not let us be taken.  
>You must wake up.<br>Burn down the thorn thicket.  
>Tear down the tower.<br>End the curse as dark as night.  
>Winter has found the bear.<em>

_"Rosalinda wastes away in shadow.  
>Winter will not blight the rose.<br>Ice will be the rhinemaiden's sword.  
>He has heard the ghost's song.<br>He has seen her dance.  
>The wolf bares its teeth at hope.<em>

_"He bears the mirror shard.  
>Need black bear to be free.<br>Need black wolf to melt the shard.  
>Magic need black wolf.<br>Sleeper need black bear.  
>The hearth is naught but ashes.<em>

_"Seven sides to a glass coffin.  
>Shatter the glass to free winter.<br>Hope is red as blood,  
>Dark as ebony,<br>Broken as glass,  
>Cold as winter's heart."<em>

Alex sighed. Stared at the new message, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth until it started to ache. Her right hand spasmed and twitched until she smushed it flat against the desk with her left. At last, she sighed again.

"Well…shoot." Her voice was no longer even halfway close to steady. Blue eyes snapped frantically back and forth between the words on the screen. Black and white swans, clockwork dolls, the Firebird, the ghost, the rhinemaiden…she'd danced those roles before. _Swan Lake, Copellia, The Firebird, Giselle, Ondine_…And she had been—for seven terrible years—the girl in the fairytale under accursed sleep.

Her breath caught in her throat when she said, "I guess I…I guess I _am_ the Sleeper. Crap." She stared at her computer for another minute, then shut everything down. Once the hum of the computer had died to silence, she mumbled, "I'm going to bed."

She had a date in the morning. The rest of this crap could wait.

_TBC_

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_**Author's Note:**__ this chapter is dedicated to my friend WhenNightmaresWalked, who I recently discovered was reading this fic. I was like, "OMG! Excitement!" So this chap is for you, dear. *hug*_

_Anywho, so what do we think of the Tesseract not only being more chatty, but becoming more coherent? We didn't get to see Loki in this chapter, but we did get more development with the Cube's messages, and some foreshadowing of things to come. What do you guys think is gonna happen next?_

_And yes, next chapter is date number 2!__ I was gonna have it in this chapter, but then I thought, "Meh. This is a good place to end it." What do you think will happen on the date, hmmm? Let me know in your reviews, okay? I love you all! Huggles!_

_- LA_


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